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African communities now realise that when an elephant is killed, they are losing an asset Photo: ALAMY
I firmly believe that the one-off legal sale of 105,000 tons of ivory to the
Far East in 2009 stimulated a demand that was previously not there. It had a
catalytic effect from which the whole African continent is now suffering.
There has been such progress here in changing people's views about wildlife
and conservation. In 1990, when the ivory ban was introduced, African
communities were not beneficiaries of tourism, but in northern Kenya this
has radically changed, through the work of the Northern Rangelands Trust (an
umbrella organisation that helps more than 60,000 pastoral farmers in Kenya
derive an income from their environment), Tusk and other groups, as well as
a radical shift in government policy led by the Kenya Wildlife Service. In
the past week the Kenyan government, following the escalation of poaching in
northern Kenya, has brought in all the chiefs in the areas most heavily
affected to discuss how to apprehend the perpetrators of the poaching within
their communities. This would never have happened 20 years ago.
Tourism plays a huge role in persuading local people that there is a future in
community-led conservation; there is now a series of lodges available to
holidaymakers, run by local people, for local people, that are the equal of
anything national parks can offer.
These communities now realise that when an elephant is killed, they are losing
an asset. It is becoming, in effect, a neighbourhood-watch scheme: local
communities are on the lookout and will challenge their brothers. If
welfare, education and employment are being jeopardised by the outside
killing of an animal, they won't let it happen.
