The announcement that the Trump administration is considering overturning the US ban on elephant trophy imports from Zambia and Zimbabwe is one that directly threatens the lives of African park rangers who are tasked with protecting elephants and their ecosystems.
Over the last 10 years, more than 1,000 rangers – who are employed by governments, NGOs and private companies – have lost their lives in the line of duty. Sadly, between July 2016 and July 2017, we know of 105 park rangers who have lost their lives in the line of duty.
They include Esnart Paundi, a ranger from Zambia who was hacked to death when arresting two poachers. A third hiding in nearby bushes leapt out and hit her colleague in the head with a machete. Presuming her colleague was dead (he miraculously survived), Esnart ran, but the poachers tracked her, found her hiding behind a bush and killed her. She was taken from her five children, Anna, George, Annex, Ireen, Chimunya, all now orphaned. (Her husband, also a ranger, died of illness the year before.) Our small foundation has been supporting them with schooling and daily living expenses ever since.
I can already hear the chorus of trophy hunters: “So what does this have to do with the legitimate hunting of animals set aside for this purpose?”
They will say: “It’s legal, and it’s scientific, and money goes back into conservation and the community etc, etc, etc.”
Although I could never truly understand a hunter’s personal motivation to kill for entertainment, I once would have accepted the argument that commercial hunting could have positive conservation outcomes. I was often told that commercial hunting was a good thing if there were too many of a species, if animals had to be put down due to carrying capacity (the numbers an environment can sustain), or if they were a threat to local communities.
In theory, it seemed to make sense. Make money for conservation from what needed to be killed anyway. But the reality on the ground, the reality I’ve seen with my own eyes and heard numerous accounts of from rangers and their employers, is that trophy hunting simply doesn’t give back to the local community. And that mainly comes down to one word: corruption.
According to one study, only 3% of hunting revenue goes to communities and conservation.
I know of cases where wealthy hunting clients have flown into a country without passing border control, landed in a park or hunting concession, where they then get on to a four-wheel-drive vehicle, shoot an animal, and take off that very same day with a trophy in their cargo hold, paying only corrupt officials or concession holders to do so.
I know of areas that have hunting concessions, but instead of a small percentage of their elephants being shot, as allowed by law in that country, all the elephants were shot on the legal concession. Every single one.
I know of, and have dealt with cases of, anti-poaching rangers, who worked protecting the wildlife for billionaire-owned “conservation” hunting concessions, being killed themselves by poachers, and then the Thin Green Line Foundation, the organisation of which I am the founder and managing director, being asked to support those very widows and children of these murdered rangers.
We did support them, as they were in desperate need, but the US billionaire and his hunting company did not. After the third case of their rangers being killed, we drew the line and said that we would only pay half.
There are numerous stories of rangers being gunned down by poachers in national parks and protected areas, in their brave fight to protect elephants, rhinos and more. Sometimes the rangers are ambushed in premeditated military-style attacks, such as the five rangers who were gunned down in Zakouma national park in Chad in 2012. There are so many to mention, but a quick look at our collated honour roll shows the number of ranger deaths correlating strongly with elephant habitats and animals highly valued by trophy hunters.
When we as a foundation are asked to support the widows and children of the (often male) park rangers killed in the line of duty there is usually very little official compensation for the families.
On average, three to four children are left out of school; their families simply can’t afford the small fees. Sometimes the families become homeless, and often they are destined for a life of poverty. The little bit our foundation can give each family often keeps the children in school for three years, puts a roof over their head and maybe sets up a small business for the widow. It’s a small bit of respect for the families who have lost their bread winner, all because we as a world asked them to protect wildlife, and they bravely took up that challenge.
These tragic losses have been reflected in The International Ranger Federation (IRF) honour roll.
Of the rangers killed:
- 42% were at the hands of poachers, those who kill animals illegally;
- 45% were within the IRF’s Africa region.
A few weeks after this year’s honour roll was released on 31 July, my good friend and tireless elephant protector, Wayne Lotter, was run off the road and gunned down at point blank range in Tanzania, assassinated most likely by murderers linked to the organised crime networks directly responsible for killing elephants and trafficking their ivory around the world. Wayne was having a huge impact on their bloody business by providing training to the community rangers and guards, and interrupting their business model in other ways. They killed him for it.
Park rangers risk their lives to protect elephants, rhinos, lions and so on, and we cannot have a corrupted legal market, operating for a few wealthy clients, exacerbate that risk so that they may hang the heads of these beautiful animals on their walls and brag to their friends. It’s the very same market that can hide poached ivory. It’s the very same market that would welcome a decimation in elephant numbers as the trophy price would go higher, as would the ivory price.
I once asked a trophy hunter guide why people would want to shoot these creatures. How do they pull the trigger on an elephant or leopard? He told me that 99% of the experience is just about being out there among nature and the bush, only 1% is the pull of the trigger. Well, I think it’s high time that we as a society leave that 1% to the animals. Surely 99% satisfaction is a good day out? Why not donate the $50,000 paid to kill a majestic animal to a charity like the Thin Green Line Foundation? We’ll make sure the money goes to true conservation programs and see that park rangers (many from local communities living with wildlife) are trained, equipped and supported to truly protect nature.
If it is not enough for us to know (courtesy of the Vulcan African elephant survey) that 8% of elephants are disappearing each year, that they might not be around in the wild in 15 years, then perhaps the fate of Wayne Lotter, the rangers in Zakouma and the many more rangers who have lost their lives protecting elephants, will help Donald Trump – who has called big-game hunting a “horror show” and suggested he is currently weighing up his decision – to maintain the ban on elephant trophy imports.
Perhaps – despite the fact he has shown little reaction to gun massacres of US citizens – the fact that hundreds of orphans and widows are created through the trade in ivory will be enough.
Sean Willmore is the founder & director & president of the Thin Green Line Foundation International Ranger Federation