Elephant poaching and ivory trafficking in African tropical forests with special reference to the Republic of Congo

Abstract

"Elephant poaching is chronic and ivory is traded in and around Odzala NP in the Congo. Larger pieces of ivory and more high-calibre weapons that had been seen for some time appeared in 1999 about the time the southern African countries legally exported ivory in a one off sale to Japan. However there have been no large scale slaughters reported since the 1997 one at Mouadje where 300 animals were killed. Laws are not enforced and Congolese authorities themselves are often involved in illegal activity. Several factors encourage elephant poaching including: widespread availability of military weapons, local peoples' urge to profit from ivory sale; conflict between local people and conservation authorities over policies, and logging activities. 'The MIKE programme currently does not seem to function well in central Africa because of difficult logistics in the tropical forest and lack of experienced personnel.' The author suggests that the driving force behind elephant poaching is the international demand for ivory, and in particular the Japanese demand for hard forest elephant ivory for name seals. He notes 'Allowing ivory trade, as adopted in the CITES... will encourage illegal traffic in hard ivory and stimulate more poaching of forest elephants'."