Chinese government sponsors elephant slaughter

[Thanas]

Medium, with further links in the text.

Chinese Navy Goes to Tanzania, Murders Elephants
Beijing’s delegations pay top dollar for blood ivory

In December 2013, two Chinese navy vessels—the frigate Hengshui and the amphibious ship Jinggangshan—called at Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania for what officials described as a four-day “cultural exchange.”

Instead, officers from the ships funded the slaughter of at least 40 endangered savannah elephants, likely in Tanzania’s poorly-protected national parks.
Many Chinese prize elephant-ivory keepsakes as status symbols.

The crime came to authorities’ attention when one of the ivory suppliers, feeling the Chinese had underpaid him, turned snitch. On Dec. 30, police arrested Yu Bo—a Chinese national living in Tanzania—trying to sneak 81 tusks into Dar Es Salaam’s port, allegedly on behalf of the naval officers.

The December incident is not an isolated one. Chinese demand for status items fuels the ongoing extermination of Africa’s elephants and other wildlife. And Chinese government delegations are involved in the bloody, illegal trade.

Killing spree

In 2008, the U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora — otherwise known as CITES — gave China and five other countries permission for a one-time sale of 100 tons of banned elephant ivory.

That sale stimulated a long-dormant market for ivory that, back in the 1970s and ’80s, had fueled a poaching epidemic that killed nearly a million of Africa’s then roughly 1.3 million elephants.

Today elephant populations across Africa and Asia are again collapsing, owing mostly to illegal poaching to meet Asian demand for ivory. Between 2010 and 2012, poachers killed no fewer than 100,000 elephants, driving the total pachyderm population in Africa to just 400,000 … and falling fast.

China is the main recipient of smuggled ivory. In theory, Beijing licenses and regulates the Chinese ivory market and allows only pre-ban or CITES-approved ivory.

But in reality, most ivory vendors in China operate illegally and traffic in fresh ivory that poachers remove from elephants’ faces with chainsaws, after shooting or poisoning the gentle, intelligent creatures.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare surveyed Chinese ivory shops in 2011. “Of the 158 ivory carving and retail outlets visited in the month-long survey, only 57 were licensed: 101 were unlicensed and operating illegally.”

And the Chinese navy is helping to transport this blood ivory to China.

Hengshui and Jinggangshan’s December visit “prompted a surge in business for Dar Es Salaam-based ivory traders,” according to the U.K. Environmental Investigation Agency. “One dealer based in the Mwenge handicrafts market boasted of making … $50,000 from sales to personnel from the vessels.”

Yu Bo was hoping to get in on the action. “On the evening in question, two vehicles arrived at the port entrance, both carrying concealed ivory. Bribes totaling [$20,000] were paid to gain access without inspection.”

But police stopped Yu at a second checkpoint after a tip-off from the aggrieved supplier. The subsequent investigation revealed that Yu had arrived in Tanzania a month prior in order to arrange the ivory sale.

While corrupt Tanzanian authorities are often party to wildlife trafficking, in Yu’s case justice was swift and severe. In March, a court fined him $5.6 million—the maximum Tanzanian law allows. He could not pay, so the judge switched the sentence to 20 years in prison.

But Yu’s imprisonment is a rare act of accountability. More often, African elephant-killers and their Chinese patrons get away with their crimes. In March 2013, Chinese president Xi Jinping visited Tanzania at the head of a large delegation, which proceeded to buy up so much ivory that local prices doubled.

The tusks, torn from the animals’ faces, were “later sent to China in diplomatic bags on the presidential plane,” according to the Environmental Investigation Agency.

Perversely, in November the Chinese ambassador to Tanzania Lu Youqing told a reporter that “protection of the diversity of the wildlife of the country … is a noble course that should be supported by different nations.”

[Borgholio]

I have no words. The Chinese fucking NAVY is in on this?

[Thanas]

Their head of Government is in on this.

[ray245]

I wonder what will it take for the Chinese to reconsider their mindset in regards to driving animals towards extinction.

[Joun_Lord]

I wonder what will it take for the Chinese to reconsider their mindset in regards to driving animals towards extinction.

What did it take for Europeans and Americans to do so? In olden times Westerners were just as bloody, driving entire species into extinction. Trophies of great beasts filled entire rooms in the houses of some wealthy hunters. The gentleman hunter on safari to the dark continent was apparently very common.

Now even a legal canned hunt of an endangered animal that is for whatever reason considered surplus that will probably save plenty of other animals and improve conservation efforts with the huge amount of money paid to cash strapped African conservations is considered by many to be pretty effed up. People throw hissy fits when even older animals no longer able to produce offspring are killed for 100s of thousands of dollars that are quite often the only way governments can make money to protect the animals.

What changed?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I wonder what will it take for the Chinese to reconsider their mindset in regards to driving animals towards extinction.

Probably nothing. If you ask me, the hypercompetitive nature of Chinese society makes us rather insensitive to a lot of things.

[Irbis]

What changed?

The difference is that European wanted trophies that can be replaced by whatever other glory token token you can think of, including harmless ones. Europeans weren't obsessed with made up placebo medicine based on superstition and superficial similarity of body parts of endangered animals to whatever voodoo you want to achieve

If humans can destroy species just with stupid short term thinking meat harvesting, then directed, pointless killing of animals for often a single organ will be much faster and more effective.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah. As another example, the buffalo hunts in the American West didn't really start to exterminate the buffalo until people started shooting huge numbers of them, just to get at specific choice parts of the animal. Killing one buffalo out of a herd of thousands to eat isn't going to make a dent in their population unless you do it very often. Killing 100 buffalo so that your hunting party can live on buffalo tongue for a week and throw away the rest... that's going to wipe them out in a relatively short period of time.

Now, it makes a certain amount of sense for African countries to try controlled hunting as a strategy to help make their conservation strategies self-sustaining. But if controlled hunting turns into "hey, slip me a few hundred dollars and I'll ignore that dead elephant," then that has totally stopped working and is no longer an excuse or explanation for what's going on.

[mr friendly guy]

I have no words. The Chinese fucking NAVY is in on this?

Corruption most probably. There are also rumours that Chinese businesses and officials use state visits to smuggle it out because as explained, if you're part of the delegation with the president no one checks your bags. Of course at this point its a case of my word vs your word.

This thread is the first time I have heard the Chinese president is actually accused of being involved.

[Guardsman Bass]

You need a campaign in China to aggressively push back against illegal ivory and probably ivory goods in general, which is hard if the Chinese government is tacitly colluding on illegal elephant poaching in east Africa.

Looks like we'll start seeing more tuskless elephants as a percentage of the overall east African elephant population if this keeps up for a few years.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

You need a campaign in China to aggressively push back against illegal ivory and probably ivory goods in general, which is hard if the Chinese government is tacitly colluding on illegal elephant poaching in east Africa.

Looks like we'll start seeing more tuskless elephants as a percentage of the overall east African elephant population if this keeps up for a few years.

I think the trouble is unless the elephant is a panda, it ain't gonna get any attention...

[K. A. Pital]

If one does not make ivory into a tradeable or non-tradeable but still luxury good, nothing of the sort happens.

[PKRudeBoy]

If one does not make ivory into a tradeable or non-tradeable but still luxury good, nothing of the sort happens.

How exactly does one propose to do that, use the Mind-Control-3000 to make people stop wanting it? When the head of state of the largest market comes to do the smuggling personally, I don't think there will be any drop in demand.

[Ziggy Stardust]

What changed?

For thing, the now fundamental ecological sciences that would allow anyone to really model and understand the fragility of the ecosystem and the negative repercussions of over-hunting were essentially non-existent, or more properly in their nascency. Even those scientists that did understand the consequences lacked the means to demonstrably communicate those consequences and convince people to stop. These are concepts that didn't really become common in the public awareness until the Industrial Revolution.

You asking, "What changed?" just sounds like a ham-fisted way to call Western hypocrites. Even if your objection was well-founded in this case, which it isn't for the reasons I described in the previous paragraph, this is akin to saying, "Well how can the US condemn modern day slave traders/labor, because they used to own lots of slaves!" Part of owning up and taking responsibility for historical atrocities is to not only maintain awareness of those atrocities, but to actively make sure those atrocities can never occur again. This goes for slavery, and it goes for widespread environmental destruction.

[Darmalus]

What changed?

For thing, the now fundamental ecological sciences that would allow anyone to really model and understand the fragility of the ecosystem and the negative repercussions of over-hunting were essentially non-existent, or more properly in their nascency. Even those scientists that did understand the consequences lacked the means to demonstrably communicate those consequences and convince people to stop. These are concepts that didn't really become common in the public awareness until the Industrial Revolution.

You asking, "What changed?" just sounds like a ham-fisted way to call Western hypocrites. Even if your objection was well-founded in this case, which it isn't for the reasons I described in the previous paragraph, this is akin to saying, "Well how can the US condemn modern day slave traders/labor, because they used to own lots of slaves!" Part of owning up and taking responsibility for historical atrocities is to not only maintain awareness of those atrocities, but to actively make sure those atrocities can never occur again. This goes for slavery, and it goes for widespread environmental destruction.

Not how I read his question. What I got from it was "Western nations went from gleeful slaughter to a conservationist stance, something in their culture changed to drive that. What was that change, and how might a similar change be encouraged in China?"

[Joun_Lord]

For thing, the now fundamental ecological sciences that would allow anyone to really model and understand the fragility of the ecosystem and the negative repercussions of over-hunting were essentially non-existent, or more properly in their nascency. Even those scientists that did understand the consequences lacked the means to demonstrably communicate those consequences and convince people to stop. These are concepts that didn't really become common in the public awareness until the Industrial Revolution.

Would that have really effected the public perception toward environmental protection? Most people would probably be unswayed by intangible arguments of ecosystem models made by hoity toity scientists with their degrees and kelvins and test vacuum tubes.

I can't speak for Europe but as far as I know the change in conservation in the US was the result of impassioned campaigns by such men as John Muir and Theodore "Not Wheels" Roosevelt. Their campaigns had less to do with science and more to do with hitting people in their feels and preaching the gospel of sacred nature.

Also Roosevelt was a very scary man and when he said do something people did it, thus we have a crapload of national parks.

I assume conservation efforts in Canada were just the result of them being so darn nice.

You asking, "What changed?" just sounds like a ham-fisted way to call Western hypocrites.

That was not my intention. While in days long past we were as bad or worse then modern ivory traders I can truthfully say without a doubt we are now better in regards to hunting. Arguably we went too far in whining about hunters hunting deers that could wreck ecosystems with over-population and trying to go after subsistence hunters but thats a whole nother tangent.

Most American'ts and Euro-commies know hunting intelligent animals for their horns or any animal just for their gall bladder is pretty effed up and thats what is important in my eyes even if we may not have always felt that way. We learned from our past mistakes.

[Irbis]

Arguably we went too far in whining about hunters hunting deers that could wreck ecosystems with over-population

Gee, is that the deers fault, or maybe some petty idiots damaging essential part of the ecosystem for short term gain and now trying to damage it in opposite way instead of letting it stabilize?

trying to go after subsistence hunters

Yeah, why should we care about them potentially catching and spreading dangerous diseases or parasites? Not like we're right in the middle of huge outbreak of deadly disease caused by just that, right?

Also, not like their unlicensed, uncontrolled butchery or animals can do any harm, right? I mean, say passenger pigeon, dodo, or the rest of the Sixth Extinction won't protest anymore, so we're on the right track!

[Joun_Lord]

Arguably we went too far in whining about hunters hunting deers that could wreck ecosystems with over-population

Gee, is that the deers fault, or maybe some petty idiots damaging essential part of the ecosystem for short term gain and now trying to damage it in opposite way instead of letting it stabilize?

trying to go after subsistence hunters

Yeah, why should we care about them potentially catching and spreading dangerous diseases or parasites? Not like we're right in the middle of huge outbreak of deadly disease caused by just that, right?

Also, not like their unlicensed, uncontrolled butchery or animals can do any harm, right? I mean, say passenger pigeon, dodo, or the rest of the Sixth Extinction won't protest anymore, so we're on the right track!

No its not the deers fault, nor is it really their fault when they kill hundreds of people a year in automocar accidents and cause plenty of damage to farms, and those places with the trees and junk.

But just letting nature sort it out is probably not a great solution considering nature's solution to the problem is animals that were removed because of their threat to human life and our pets and food animals and probably alot more damage as the deer population explodes even further. Not to mention even greater suffering as the deer population only goes down as they over-eat the land and starve. I don't know about you but the thought of thousands of animals staving to death sounds much worse then Cletus and his buddies getting drunk and bagging Bambi. Then getting drunk some more to celebrate. Probably drinking before hand too just to get in the mood. Drinking beer seems to be about 90% of deer hunting.

I doubt some Native Americans taking down a buffalo or two a year or some Eskimos taking out a whale is really going to render the species extinct and give them bison or whale ebola.

Just like Cletus and his drunken pals needs licenses to get them some proto-deer jerky, our one with nature natives and their icy cousins hunting is regulated and controlled. They don't just do out and slaughter hundreds of animals all willy nilly, the Alaskan indigenous people hunt about 50 whales a year from a population of over 10,000. A population that according to international animal boinking experts is growing steadily. The only time bison are hunted is when they need culling.

[Batman]

Could we please get back to species that are actually, you know, 'endangered'? You know, like those elephants. Anything that has a population sufficient to pose a serious traffic hazard is most definitely not.

[Patroklos]

I am currently in South Africa and went on a few days of game expeditions in Kruger National Park and some of the neighboring private reserves last week. According to every ranger and guide I talked to the motitorium on culling where it exists (not in SA) and the general public disapproval of doing so in general is having a very serious negative effect on overall African park conservation efforts. The Tanzinian situation is sad and disturbing but not nessisarily indicative of the overall conservation challenge picture.

I am a big fan of initiatives like the great Limpopo Transfrontier Park initiative that is looking to integrate the parks of neighboring countries to provide for massive undivided expanses of wilderness to secure populations of all sorts of endangered animals. By leveraging the success sories of the parks in countries like SA and Namibia to uplift those with spotty records like Zimbabwe and Mozambique it looks like a lot of progress can be made. The trick is to make these parks valuable to the local populations both financially and a national pride issue because this is where you both prevent people from entering the poaching trade (which is all locals) as well as convince locals to turn in poachers they know of.

And while elephants are important I would like to point out they are in no way nearing extinction (I realize the Tanzinian population is specifically more critical). African Rhinos and all rhino species for that after on the other hand are in very serious trouble and hurt by the exact same Chinese demand.