Today, the world’s elephants are the subjects of brutal and deadly poaching by profiteers who kill or maim these creatures, hack away their faces to acquire their ivory, and then sell their bloody loot to China and other Asian countries where it is turned into trinkets and jewelry. The elephants are left to die an agonizing death and the people are silent. Close to 30,000 were killed in 2012; many more thousands have been killed this year. In Tanzania, it is estimated that they will be extinct within 7 years. The World Wildlife Fund says one recent study found that 62 percent of the Congo Basin's forest elephant population has been wiped out over the past decade. Country after country reports the horror and the decline of the species.
An international outcry is desperately needed, or we will awake one day soon and the elephant will be extinct as a wild species. I recognize that this is a painful subject and that most people avert their gaze and their attention, but if we do not help these creatures by raising public awareness, we will see the end of elephants in the wild. Personally, I find this completely horrifying.
What to do? Here are some things that I’ve done. I encourage you to come up with other ideas, do them and share them here.
1. Social and/or Advocacy Media. I know that there’s a great deal of power in social media – to keep our friends and family apprised of the situation may be helpful. I think it would be good to use advocacy media, but I haven’t the first clue how to get that done. Maybe some of you have ideas of how that can be utilized and brought to bear on this situation. Change.org? Avaaz.org? If so, please share it with me and others. I suspect that this avenue will yield the greatest results.
2. Attract Media Attention: The New York Times has written a few important articles about this situation, but little else has appeared. Who can be contacted? How can we attract the attention of the “regular media?”
http://www.nytimes.com/...
3. Wildlife Organizations. Join organizations which are focused on helping these creatures. Here are a few; Googling will find other groups whose focus are saving the elephants.
Wildlife Conservation Society (currently they are trying to save the elephants in the Central African Republic which are being slaughtered at an alarming rate) http://www.wcs.org/
World Wildlife Fund http://worldwildlife.org/...
Bloody Ivory
http://bloodyivory.org/
David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (rescuing injured eles and their orphaned young in Kenya. You can ‘adopt’ an orphan elephant and help return it to the wild)
http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/
4. Tourist Agencies. I believe it’s important to contact the tourist agencies in the African nations, stating your intention to NOT travel to their country as long as elephants are being exploited for their ivory. Here are some links for those kinds of communications. I’m sure there are many, many more.
Kenya:
http://www.magicalkenya.com Email: info@ktb.go.ke
Tanzania:
http://www.tanzaniatouristboard.com/... Email: info@tanzaniatourism.go.tz
Mozambique:
http://www.mozambiquetourism.co.za/... Email:travel@mozambiquetourism.co.za
Zambia:
http://www.zambiatourism.com/... Email: ztb@zambiatourism.org.zm
5. Chinese Ambassador and the Consulates. Write the Ambassador of China to the U.S. in Washington and to the various Chinese Consulates in America. Here’s the letter which I’m sending.
This might be an idea for some kind of Advocacy group. Perhaps in petition form? I’m out of my league here.
Dear Consul General (or Ambassador)
We are writing to request your support in an extremely important environmental matter in which your country is greatly involved -- the importation and use of illegal ivory and the imminent extinction of the elephant. It is widely believed that the sale of ivory products in China contributes to more than 50% of the ivory trade.
African and Asian elephants are being decimated by this trade in ivory. We will lose these magnificent creatures unless action is taken. China has the opportunity to step forward, declare the importation and sale of all ivory products illegal and, overnight, there would be a huge impact on this deplorable situation.
The world has supported China for many years in the protection of its Giant Pandas. We are asking for your help to make the necessary changes to save the world’s elephants.
We realize that you cannot do this alone, but perhaps you are in a position to relay this request to the proper authorities in China.
We thank you for your help.
Addresses are:
Ambassador Cui Tiankai
Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the United States of America
3505 International Place, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20008 U.S.A.
Counsel General ZHAO Weiping
Consulate General of the
People’s Republic of China
One East Erie St., Suite 500
Chicago, IL 60611
Counsel General XU Erwen
Consulate General of the
People’s Republic of China
3417 Montrose Blvd.
Houston, TX 77006
Counsel General Sun Guoxiang
Consulate General of the
People’s Republic of China
520 12th Avenue
New York, NY 10036
Counsel General Qiu Shaofang
Consulate General of the
People’s Republic of China
443 Shatto Place
Los Angeles, CA 90036
Counsel General Yuan Nansheng
Consulate General of the
People’s Republic of China
1450 Laguna Street
San Francisco, CA 94115
6. Protests. I’ve thought long and hard about this. We have a Chinese Consulate in the S.F. Bay Area where I could go “protest.” I don’t know if this is a good idea or a bad one. My first inclination was that it might be helpful, but the Chinese might respond quite negatively. I don’t pretend to have an answer.
7. U.S. Government. Last but not least, contact your American representatives and President Obama, asking for their efforts to help in whatever way possible.
Any other ideas out there?
"If we do not act, we will have to shamefully admit to our children that we stood by as elephants were driven out of existence.”-- WCS conservationists Samantha Strindberg & Fiona Maisels, writing in The New York Times