Can shooting some elephants save many others?
- Tanzania says yes, Kenya says no
The mighty elephant paws at the foot of an acacia tree, his tusks so long they graze the grass. Snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro shimmers in the distance. This is the kind of view that each year draws tens of thousands of visitors to Amboseli National Park in Kenya, on the southern border with Tanzania. Craig (pictured), the 51-year-old bull underneath the tree, may be the best-known elephant in the world.
Yet while some tourists are content to flash their cameras at Craig, others come bearing rifles. On the Tanzanian side of the border, where trophy-hunting is allowed, five elephants have been killed in recent months. At least two were from a dwindling number of “super-tuskers”—old bulls, like Craig, prized for their unusually weighty tusks—which have been decimated by illegal poaching in recent decades.
The killings followed the decision last year by authorities in Tanzania to issue permits for shooting elephants in the area. Ending a de facto ban, in place since 1995, on touching any of the park’s cross-border population, it has caused bad blood between Kenya and Tanzania and revived an old debate over the aims, means and beneficiaries of wildlife conservation.
Scientists have probably been studying the elephants of Amboseli for longer than any other population anywhere. Thanks in part to the local Maasai people, who have traditionally lived peacefully alongside elephants, Amboseli escaped the worst of the poaching that blighted much of Africa in recent decades. As a result “the population has an age structure closest to what one undisturbed by human contact should look like,” says Joyce Poole, a specialist in elephants. This means more mature bulls, including the rare super-tuskers that have made the park famous.
Campaigners say that Tanzania’s decision imperils the remaining super-tuskers in Greater Amboseli. “Could these be the woolly mammoths, so to speak, of our lifetime?” asks Beatrice Karanja of the Mara Elephant Project, a Kenyan wildlife charity. More than 50 conservation groups from all over the world have called on Tanzania’s government to outlaw trophy-hunting of elephants in the area.
Yet the practice has long been seen in a positive light in Tanzania, not least by some conservationists. Proponents argue that letting wealthy foreigners kill a few endangered animals for a hefty fee ultimately does more to save elephants than ordinary tourism. A single elephant hunt can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Tanzania’s government believes that this helps fund the protection of the large expanses of pristine habitat which elephants and other large animals need to survive. About 40% of the country’s land mass is set aside for conservation, among the highest shares in the world and more than in neighbouring Kenya.
Yet critics say the Tanzanian government, which owns all land in Tanzania and takes a large share of the revenue it generates, is more interested in grabbing money than in conservation. A recent study found that little of the revenue from hunting in a game reserve next to Nyerere National Park in Tanzania reached local residents. “Trophy-hunting is primarily a money-making tool, rather than a conservation tool,” says Ritha Kalokola of the University of Dar es Salaam, one of the authors.
Some say the government’s decision to scrap the prohibition against hunting Amboseli elephants was similarly motivated by money. “A quota for five elephants in a single zone is unheard of,” says Danny McCallum, a retired professional hunter who spent decades in Tanzania.
Kenya’s approach to wildlife conservation is different. Stronger property rights give local residents greater say over how their land is used. Much of the rangeland around Amboseli National Park is owned by Maasai cattle herders, who lease it to conservationists for a fee.
In theory this means few of the forced evictions common in Tanzania, and more money from tourism, which generates 8-9% of Kenya’s GDP, in local hands. Big Life Foundation, an NGO that leases and protects lots of “conservancy” land, says that in recent years elephant poaching in Greater Amboseli has become less of a problem, benefiting locals. “If the number of elephants falls, the number of tourists falls too,” explains Margaret Nayieso, who lives in a conservancy managed by Big Life.
Yet despite the ban on trophy-hunting, wildlife in Kenya has declined more dramatically than in Tanzania since the 1970s, when the ban first came into force. As Kenya’s population has grown, violent conflicts between people and wildlife—and between wealthy conservationists and local pastoralists—have spread. And not everyone is thrilled about the growth of conservancies. One recent study from Mara, in south-west Kenya, found that the chief beneficiaries of these were powerful local elites, in particular older men. “Honestly, if the government ended the hunting ban, most people would support it,” reckons one Kenyan conservationist.
That suggests that when it comes to managing Amboseli, compromise is possible. One option would be for researchers in Kenya to share data about the most valuable super-tuskers for hunters to avoid. Alternatively, suggests Amy Dickman of Oxford University, anti-hunting groups could pay land managers in Tanzania to compensate for the revenues forgone by leaving certain elephants untouched.
Any agreement would require better co-ordination between authorities on either side of the border. Lessons from such deals could help elephants elsewhere: by one estimate, some 76% live in populations that cross borders. Like Craig, they are no single country’s property.
Correction (September 27th): An earlier version of this article wrongly stated that a game reserve in Tanzania is now known as Nyerere National Park. The reserve for hunting remains outside the national park, where hunting is banned. Sorry.
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First Published:29 Nov 2024, 06:00 PM IST
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