Among the greatest contributors to social destabilization and environmental damage to various Central African nations is the proliferation of poaching and the black market industry that stems from it. Every year, poachers kill thousands of exotic animals such as elephants and rhinos to satisfy international demand for animal products. Despite the current global ban on any commodities derived from poached animals, today’s illegal poaching market affects millions of human and animal lives. Through the use of stricter international legislation, greater outreach through educational services, and increasing the funding for African national park rangers, poaching in Central Africa may diminish to the benefit of both African society and the global ecosystem.
Today’s modern poaching business resonates the influence of former European control over regions in Africa where exotic animals are prevalent. Many European colonies organized in Africa during the Age of Imperialism of the mid-nineteenth century were created purely for the exploitation of land, resources, and cheap labor to benefit Europe alone. Most notably, Belgium, under the leadership of King Leopold II, established ivory trade stations in Congo from which the lucrative ivory trading business gained legitimacy. One colony in particular, Côte d’Ivoire, obtained its name from its French founders for its reputation as an ivory harvesting province. The demand for ivory, rhinoceros horns, and other exotic animal products rose during the mid-nineteenth century as industrialization augmented the economic prowess of European and American citizens. The Encyclopedia Britannica states that the “rapid prosperity in both Europe and North America led to an increase in demand for ivory to mak...
... middle of paper ...
...s Dying in Epic Frenzy as Ivory Fuels Wars and Profits." The New York Times 4 Sept. 2012: A1. Print.
Kabukuru, Wanjohi. "Poaching: The Hidden Menace to African Economies." African Business 399 (2013): 70-72. Business Source Complete. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
Wasser, Samuel K., et al. "Combating the Illegal Trade in African Elephant Ivory with DNA Forensics." Conservation Biology 22.4 (2008): 1065-1071. Academic Search Complete. Web. 27 Mar. 2014.
"Central Africa". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 27 Mar. 2014
Alessi, Michael De. "Permitting Limited Trade in Ivory Will Help Protect Elephants." Africa. Ed. Laura K. Egendorf. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2005. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Elephants, Markets, and Mandates." Fraser Forum (Apr. 2003). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.
Anti-hunters are opposed to the explicit acts of hunters in Africa because of the environmental degradation it can lead to. What I want to be of focus, though, is that controversy over the act of hunting is not solely in line with hunting endangered African mammals. The results of all kinds of hunts and the drives hunters have to pursue these hunts differ because of the uniqueness of the goods the hunters seek in their adventures. What non-hunters and anti-hunters easily overlook is the anthropocentric values that the hunter seeks to fulfill and achieve, and how it expresses an interaction with nature.
Lindsey, P. A., R. Alexander, L. G. Frank, A. Mathieson, and S. S. Romanach. "Potential of Trophy Hunting to Create Incentives for Wildlife Conservation in Africa Where
First, poaching is a huge game being played. It hurts the animals or species that are being targeted, which causes them to increase their chances of extinction. Orietta C. Estrada, an animal and environmental writer, explains that poaching "is a crime fueled by a lucrative black market trade of animal parts"(onegreenplanet). To these people, it is all about the money. They do not bother to think about how much pain this creature may feel. The only thing they desire to obtain is the big dollars. The animals that are affected by this monstrous act are elephants, tigers, rhinoceros, Tibetan antelopes, gorillas, and great apes(animalpoachers.weebly). The most they have done with dealing with the poachers is give them a cruel punishment for being caught. It does not work because it still happens today and the animals are still dying and becoming
Poaching threatens the dying out of endangered species. Lions have virtually disappeared in Africa causing animal activists to protest for stricter rules on hunting big game. Damian Aspinall, director of the Aspinall Foundation, said,
Did you know that 100 African elephants are killed each day? According to, At Issue hunting is the practice of pursuing and killing live animals for food, recreation or trade. The Pro View is that hunting is an important component of managing wildlife populations. The Con View is hunting opponents argue that more hunting regulations are needed to prevent animals from going in to extinction (Sirs Data Base). This paper will examine the Pro, Con and my viewpoint on should trophy hunting be banned.
Sheriff, Abdul. Slaves, Spices & Ivory in Zanzibar. London: James Currey Publishers, 1987. This book enabled me to understand the context and history of the ivory trade.
Poachers travel from country to country and they are undeniably fast working. This is why more people should be working as investigators to track these people down. It is sad to say that poachers are the reason why elephants will become extinct, but there are not enough resources, laws, to actually prohibit this endangerment. Ivory should be completely internationally banned to save this species. Wild African elephants will soon become like dinosaurs to our grand children because people of authority have decided that it is not an issue to properly take care of.
Elephants are an endangered species and they should not be killed for their ivory or they will become extinct. In the article The Poaching Problem the author writes” elephant populations have declined to dangerously low levels.” At the rate that poachers are killing these innocent animal the entire species of elephants will be extinct in the year 2030! That is only twenty five years, I know that does not seem like a long time but it is going to go by fast and every one will regret killing all those poor innocent gentle creatures. In case study 483 they author writes “ During the 1970s and 1980s elephant poaching had included about 1.3 million elephants killed for their tusks.” It is hard to distinguish between legal and illegal ivory so it is sold easily.
There’s another catch to trophy hunting: it is extremely expensive. Permits for trophy hunting usually cost thousands of dollars, which leads to the idea that killing animals can actually help conservation. This concept might seem ridiculous at first, but trophy-hunting permits bring in a plethora of money. For instance, the so-called “ten-day ‘elephant package’ could cost… 36,000 [dollars]” (learnenglish). Even if you merely wish to watch the hunt, you are obliged to pay 3,800 dollars (abcnews). The prices are strikingly high, meaning that so is the revenue. South Africa alone brings in more than 744 million dollars every single year, making it its “most profitable form of commercial land use” (learnenglish). This enormous amount of money can not only be used to aid the many third world countries in Africa, but also with conservation. Many argue that by killing wild game during hunting, it causes some species to go extinct. However, strong economic incentive has motivated landowners to expand their territories, reintroduce species, and take care of the animals in general, which would indicate the opposite: more animals are safe. One might even conclude that the world is saving animals, by killing
Humans have been killing elephants for meat and their ivory for countless years, according to PBS.org's article, "The Poaching Problem", an estimate was made "In 1977, 1.3 million elephants lived in Africa; by 1997, only 600,000 remained."
There are so many reason why poaching is a concern, so I am going to come up with idea to stop the poaching. Poaching is a vast and continuous thing that happen everywhere, but m prime concern is the poaching of elephants. We could put more sanctuaries in Africa and other places, poaching hurts the elephant population. So we need to protect the elephants that are left, and what can we do to help the baby orphaned elephants put more sanctuaries in africa and other places.
As the WWF has been helping to keep elephants away from the harm of people, they have also teamed up with TRAFFIC, the “international wildlife trade monitoring network, to reduce the major threat that illegal and illicit domestic ivory markets pose to wild elephants” (Elephant). TRAFFIC, in addition to reducing the ivory threat to elephants, pinpoints specific routes of ivory trades and stops them. This is very important to the Sumatran elephants because the ivory trade is one of the main issues that they deal with and with TRAFFIC trying to stop it, they may actually have a
The dynamic natural environment and abundant wildlife are the most prominent features of the African continent. Due to its wide variety of biomes ranging from tropical forests to arid deserts, Africa consists of bountiful wildlife diversity. However, because of environmentally harmful human interactions, the variety of biomes is shrinking to all-time lows, which causes wildlife to die out. These detrimental human interactions, particularly livestock overgrazing and desertification, occur partly because the native people who depend on the land for daily life do not realize the potential benefits of wildlife and the unsustainability of their current ways. Poaching for horns and other valuable animal parts has also contributed to the decreasing amount of species present in the wild. However, the methods for conserving the wildlife environment differ in how they address the issue of the dwindling wildlife populations. The conventional method of conservation created in the mold of the Convention Relative to the Preservation of Fauna and Flora in their Natural State (also known as the London Convention) involves the complete centralization of wildlife resources to the government. The newer, more effective method called the Sustainable Use Approach makes drastic changes to the London Convention principles by decentralizing ownership of wildlife and allowing small communities and villages to manage it themselves.
Although it may not seem saving or protecting endangered animals is important, it actually and truly is important because animals around the world are being killed for wildlife market goods which is illegal and destroys the species population in that environment. Citizens should take more concern with taking care of these endangered animals before they become totally extinct and will no longer be seen on the face of the earth. Recently researchers have found that poachers (hunters who hunt animals for their value with trading illegal merchandise) are killing thousands of animals a day, and they are doing so even to this day. These species should be treated with more responsibility and care. They are even being killed by human interactions
There are a lot of causes of the scramble for Africa, and one of them was to ‘liberate’ the slaves in Africa after the slave trade ended. The slave trade was a time during the age of colonization when the Europeans, American and African traded with each oth...