Elephants Now In Demand For Their Skin

Recent times have seen the emergence of a dangerous trend that would adversely affect elephant populations everywhere. This is the growing demand for the skins of elephants, especially, of the Asian elephant.

A study, started by an England-based non-governmental organisation called the Elephant Family, has made some startling revelations in this respect. They have carried out a detailed survey of the illegal elephant skin trade that has been in operation since 2014, the results of which are now documented in a publication called ‘Skinned – The growing appetite for Asian elephants’.

The trade in elephant skin products seems to have started in about 2006 in Myanmar, and has now attained a steady annual growth. The skin of an elephant is used to manufacture beads, powdered skin, pieces of treated skin, etc. The powder is used in Chinese-based traditional medicine and pharmaceutical processes which sell under Elephant Skin Powder. Initially, powdered elephant skin was sold as an ingredient in traditional medicine. Thereafter, a new trend emerged where dried elephant skin was carved and polished into prayer beads and other Chinese collectibles with traders extolling the qualities of the blood red hue in the translucent subcutaneous layers.

Elephants are killed, and the skin removed in strips or in large square chunks. Whatever the method used, a large part of the skin not suitable for processing, is left and wasted. There seems to be no justification for killing an elephant for a small part of its skin.

The skin pachydera of an elephant, is 1.9 – 3.2 cm thick. It is thickest on the hind limbs and hindquarters, thinner on the forelimbs and shoulders, and is thinnest on the inside of the ears and around the mouth and anus. The skin though thick is sensitive. The colour of the skin is dark greyish black over most of the body but lighter on the head, trunk and ears. Though the elephant’s skin seems to be tough, it is sensitive in certain areas and susceptible to the ravages of heat and insect pests. Since the skin of an elephant is thick it cannot cool its body easily The warm blood cools as it circulates through the veins in the ear, due to the thin layer of skin that covers the ear. The cooled blood then circulates back into the body, helping reduce the overall body temperature of the elephant. Even though the Asian is the preferred elephant species, skin from the African species is also used. If the skin is needed from a particular part of the body, then the elephant killings will unnecessarily destroy more elephants than are actually needed for the illegal trade.

There is little doubt that the skin trade is alive and is a developing threat to Asian elephants across their range. The Asian elephant is found in the wild in thirteen range states. Their total number has been estimated at between 35,000 and 45,000. In the last century an estimated 90 percent population loss was recorded across their 13 range state, with habitat loss being the main threat. Over 15,000 Asian elephants are held in captivity around the world in zoos, entertainment centres, private ownership and trekking camps.

History has shown that poaching and wildlife trafficking spreads rapidly across countries and continents. The growing number of skin poaching incidents in Myanmar, and the spread of trade across Myanmar, Laos and China shows that this is already happening. Traffickers are actively developing new ways to market elephant skin products, and are selling them to apparently willing customers.

However, the wild elephants in Sri Lanka are not at risk of the demand for elephant skins for the production of ornaments and medicinal powders. The skin trade is in Myanmar where there are plenty of wild elephants. Even so we must be vigilant to ensure that no elephants are poached for the skin trade in the future.

The populations of both, the African and Asian species of elephants are threatened due to conflicts with people, habitat loss and poaching for their ivory. However, the Asian species are also threatened by the illicit live trade for the entertainment industry and the recent poaching for the illegal trade in their skins. The entertainment industry consists mainly of circuses, where elephants are a great attraction.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) through the Convention in Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) has recommended that, “All elephant range states have in place legislative, regulatory, enforcement, or other measures to prevent the illegal trade in live elephants”.

Videos posted on marketing sites show images of backyards in Myanmar and Laos being used by traders to carve up chunks of elephant skin, remove the coarse hair with blow-torches and dry it in ovens before grinding it into a fine powder.

The most effective way in which this trade could at least be reduced, if not stopped altogether, is for people not to purchase elephant skin products or ivory products.

However, this would not be a solution if man’s greed to have these items continue. If on the other hand, there is no market or demand for elephant products the elephant will have only an aesthetic value and not a commercial value.

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Poaching of 55 elephants daily leaves extinction a decade away

As world leaders and conservationists descended on London last week for the Illegal Wildlife Trafficking Conference, the burning question in their minds was: How can trade in ivory, especially in Asian countries be contained?

The fear is that Africa’s elephants could go the way of dinosaurs. Some 20,000 jumbos are killed each year — 55 every single day — mostly for the illegal ivory trade.

The war on the illicit trade was dealt a blow on February 4, when ivory researcher Esmond Martin, who had authored several investigative reports on rhino and ivory smuggling in Kenya and the trade in China, Vietnam, and Laos, was found murdered in his Karen home in Nairobi.

Speaking at the conference, First Lady Margaret Kenyatta said Kenya has recorded a significant decline in poaching due to its enhanced wildlife law enforcement efforts and the government’s proactive anti-poaching measures.

“We have revamped and improved training and equipped Kenya Wildlife Service ranger forces that continuously evict poacher elements from the parks,” she said.

The statistics make for gloomy reading, though. The overall number of elephants has declined by about one third over the last decade. Many elephants now live in small and isolated populations. And should the current trends persist, elephants will be wiped out in the next decade.

Data from World Wide Fund for Nature shows that African elephants numbered three to five million in the last century. However, WWF says, their populations were severely reduced to its current levels because of hunting.

In the 1980s, WWF estimates that 100,000 elephants were killed each year, and up to 80 per cent of herds were lost in some regions. In recent years, growing demand for ivory, particularly from Asia, has led to a surge in poaching.

Elephant populations — especially in southern and eastern Africa, which once showed promising signs of recovery — could be at risk due to the recent surge in poaching for the illegal ivory trade. Habitat loss and fragmentation and human-elephant conflict have also been blamed for the decline by WWF.

LEADING TRANSIT ROUTE

Kenya has been identified in various researches as one of the leading transit routes for smuggling ivory out of Africa, with several incidents of ivory seizures and recovery of wildlife carcasses in recent times.

According to KWS, elephant population in early 1970s was about 167,000, but in five decades, it has plummeted to slightly more than 35,000. The Central Africa Republic is the hardest-hit part of the continent, with regional elephant population declining by 64 per cent in a decade, according to the report.

In July 2016, a report showed that Vietnam had emerged as one of the world’s biggest markets for the illegal ivory trade.

The report, titled ‘Vietnam’s illegal ivory trade threatens African elephants’, said no other country in the world is known to be as active in both illegal imports of new raw tusks and illegal exports of the final ivory products.

Ivory researchers Lucy Vigne and Esmond Martin found that the overwhelming majority of raw tusks sold in wholesale in Vietnam are smuggled from Africa, with Mombasa port popping up as the major transit point in the region.

The two researchers who had set out for the study found out the number of items up for sale had risen by over six times from 2008 to 2015.

In total, Vigne and Martin found a whopping 242 open outlets, with 16,099 ivory items on display available for retail sales in Ho Chi Minh city, Buon Ma Thuot town, Hanoi and surrounding villages.

Of these items, 9,893 (61 per cent) were in one of the Northern villages that had not been counted before, with most objects being pendants and small items like jewelry.

This was in contrast to 2,444 items counted in a report published in 2008 by another ivory researcher, Dan Stiles, who also found out that most tusks had originated from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

The research was carried out between November 23 and December 14, 2015. It showed that two thirds of ivory were leaving through the ports of Mombasa, Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar, going to China and Vietnam.

The Chinese government announced in 2015 that it would phase out the legal ivory trade. This was followed by the reduction of the number of licensed ivory factories from 37 in 2014 to 34 in 2015, and the number of licensed retail outlets from 145 to 130.

Public awareness on the plight of the elephant has been steadily increasing in China, with bloody pictures on the internet and WeChat of poached elephants with tusks hacked out.

And since the ban was looming large, ivory dealers who spoke with researchers thought that their president was being pressurised to close down the country’s legal ivory trade.

They hoped there would not be a sudden ban but a gradual phasing out of ivory. Some hoped the government would buy tusks from private people as a way of compensation, including from Hong Kong traders, to help stop the trade.

Researchers Vigne and Martin would later shift their attention to South East Asian country Laos. They found that the town was becoming one of the fastest growing ivory markets in the world.

There, Chinese were now buying over 80 per cent of ivory in Laos, but the retail prices were lower than in China. They later drafted a report called, ‘The ivory trade of Laos: Now the fastest growing in the world’.

The report also noted most of the raw ivory comes from Africa by ship, in containers destined for Vientiane, the capital of Laos.

“Until recently, 90 per cent of large consignments would be moved directly to China. But nowadays much of the ivory is being diverted to Vientiane,” the 88-page report says.

Vigne and Martin did a survey in mid-November to December 2016. They collected data on the origin of ivory and trade routes into Laos.

According to them, the average wholesale price of raw ivory in Laos in 2013 had peaked to about $2,000 per kg (Sh201,896). But by late 2016, the average price had declined to $714 (Sh72,077) per kg.

The researchers found 81 retail outlets with ivory on sale, 40 of which were in the capital Vientiane. The least expensive item was $ 3 (Sh302) and the most expensive was a pair of polished tusks for $ 25,000 (Sh2,523,707).

In Vientiane and Luang Prabang, Chinese-owned shops had increased from three in 2013 to 35 in 2016.

MAJOR BLOW

In another report they released on October 2, this year, Vigne and Martin said the increased ivory in China from Myanmar could soon deal African elephants a major blow.

They compiled the report in late 2017 and titled it, ‘Myanmar’s Growing Illegal Ivory Trade with China’. In it, they found that the number of new ivory items for sale had grown exponentially.

“The number of new ivory items for sale in towns grew by 63 per cent in three years, and now accounts for over a third of the ivory seen in the country,” ivory trade specialist Lucy Vigne said.

She said Chinese visitors smuggled worked ivory from Mong La back home, with little concern about getting caught.

“This ivory has often come up the Mekong River into the lawless eastern periphery of Myanmar, where it is sold in retail and in bulk. The wholesale price for African raw ivory in late 2017 in the Golden Triangle region has remained stable at about $770 to $800 per kg since late 2015,” Vigne said.

Recent and previous studies are now what baffle governments, NGOs and decision-makers who gathered in London for the Illegal Wildlife Trafficking Conference between October 11-12.

Conservationists are now banking their hopes on the outcomes of the meeting to save elephants.

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