In New Race for Ivory, Elephant Poachers Take to the Skies

Jeffrey Gettleman, East Africa Bureau Chief for The New York Times, wrote on Tuesday that the poaching of elephants for the illegal ivory trade has gone out of control in Central Africa, and has become increasingly militarized.

Rebels groups are involved in this illegal trade. And the United States government may be also playing a part in this, involuntarily, as it has provided aid to the South Sudanese and Ugandan military recently.

Gettleman tells anchor Lisa Mullins that one Ugandan military helicopter is suspected of having been involved in the recent massacre of 22 elephants in Congo.

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Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is “The World”, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH in Boston. Africa’s elephants are in a fight for their lives against ivory smugglers. There has been a sharp increase in the number of African elephants killed by poachers in recent years. The animals are slaughtered for their tusks which are worth hundreds of dollars per pound on the black market. And some of those killing the elephants may be members of African armies that are funded by the United States. Jeffrey Gettleman writes about this in The New York Times. One of the things that’s most unsettling I think about your story, Jeffrey, is the fact that you’re talking here not about the poaching one might think of perhaps done by individuals, there is some of that of course, but this is a full-on war with heavy weaponry, with assault rifles, and even military helicopters rounding up these elephants. Can you tell us how that kind of poaching has evolved in the past few years?

Jeffrey Gettleman: Yeah, it’s pretty disturbing what’s happening out there. What we’ve seen in the last couple of years is all this different armed groups that are jumping into this business. And it makes sense because a lot of these armed groups operate in these very remote lawless areas that nobody’s really watching and they’re also deep in the Bush where elephants happen to live. And what I wrote about was the problem on two sides. We have the rebel side where some of the most notorious armed groups in Africa like the Lord’s Resistance Army, the Shabaab, the Janjaweed of Darfur, these guys are killing elephants for profit because the profits are so high. And then on the other side you have government militaries or members of government militaries that are participating in this.

Mullins: Can you give us one example of the use of military and military helicopters to kill elephants, to slaughter in order to gain the tusks?

Gettleman: Sure. The most striking example that I came across was an allegation that the Ugandan military was using a helicopter, flying into Congo, and having a sharpshooter hanging out of the helicopter and shooting elephants in the head, and then landing the helicopter, chopping the tusks out of the elephants, loading them into the helicopter, and flying away. Now, of course, nobody saw this. It’s pure circumstantial evidence and the Ugandan military denies it, but the evidence is this: There is a group of elephants, twenty-two, that were found dead in the middle of the Savannah, several with bullet holes in the top of their head. Elephants don’t usually lie down, there’s no tall trees in this part, it would be almost impossible to shoot the elephants in the top of the head unless you were in the air. Around the same time these elephants were killed, an Ugandan military helicopter was seen flying in this area and the the Ugandans do not have permission to be in that area. So right now, Interpol, the international police network, is trying to match the DNA of those elephants that were killed to some ivory that was seized in Uganda.

Mullins: Where do US interests overlap with what’s going on there? Is there any knowledge on the part of the Department of Defense or the Pentagon the US money, US funding that’s going to, for instance, Uganda or the South Sudan military has been used for these kind of poaching operations?

Gettleman: I think that a really good question. The Americans officials I spoke to publicly said they had no information that any of their allies was hunting elephants or poaching elephants. However, I did talk to other people inside the American government who said they believe that these African armies are poaching elephants. Is US money helping them do that? That’s not so clear. Maybe the US gives a lot of money to Uganda for logistical support to hunt this Lord’s Resistance Army and the Ugandans may have used some of that money for fuel for the helicopter on that day, if it indeed was them. There’s a tension within the American government on this issue because Uganda is a very strong ally of the US right now. They have thousands of peacekeepers in Somalia. They are considered one of the Pentagon’s closest friends on the African continent. However, the US is also committed to preserving species. They put a lot of money into wildlife and conservation programs across Africa. So what do you do if one of these military allies that’s very useful in many regards is also doing something that’s totally reprehensible? It hasn’t come to that point yet because the proof isn’t there, but if it develops in that direction I think it’s going to be very interesting what happens.

Mullins: You spoke with one US official who said basically, “Make no mistake. There is one major market for this kind of ivory.” What is it?

Gettleman: It’s China. And this is the really interesting part. There are now something like three hundred million people in China’s middle class who have disposable income to buy ivory, and what we’re talking about are trinkets. That’s part of the tragedy here, is a lot of the ivory that’s being sold in China is little things like bookmarks, cups, combs, earrings . . .

Mullins: Ivory chopsticks you say?

Gettleman: Yeah, chopsticks. I mean just little things that could easily be made out of plastic or wood. So it’s really a supply and demand issue and a lot of people that I spoke with spoke of this problem like the drug trade. As long as there is this insatiable appetite for ivory, it’s going to be very difficult to stop the trade.

Mullins: All right. Thank you very much for telling us about this, and we’re going to post your article at theworld.org. Jeffrey Gettleman, East Africa Bureau Chief for The New York Times. Thank you.

Gettleman: Thank you.

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