ELEPHANTS & IVORY

© IFAW/D. Willetts/Tsavo West National Park, Kenya
THE QUESTION OF CULLING
In situations where humans decide that there
are more elephants in the local environment
than individual people or society-at-large desire
or are willing to tolerate, we typically hear calls
for culling programs to reduce the number of
animals. This issue is sufficiently widespread that
it deserves further comment.
Culling programs involve either the killing
of individual animals (lethal culling) or their
translocation to other places (non-lethal culling).
Irrespective of the species involved, culling
programs are almost universally initiated without
specific conservation goals; without adequate
scientific assessment; and without any serious
consideration of any alternatives to culling that
might actually achieve the presumed objectives,
both for the target animals and other ecosystem
components, including human society. Almost
invariably, culling programs are initiated without
adequate monitoring schemes that would be
required to evaluate the results of a cull. For
these and other reasons, culling programs rarely
if ever resolve the underlying problems and may,
in fact, make things worse in the longer term.
Not surprisingly, they remain highly controversial
undertakings, both within the conservation
community and society-at-large.
Culling is one issue that science can actually
help to clarify. At a 1981 meeting that examined
the problem of locally abundant mammalian
populations, the beginnings of a protocol for the
scientific assessment of culling proposals began
to emerge. 83 A decade later, the United Nations
Environment Programme’s Marine Mammals Action
Plan actually developed an elaborate protocol
for the scientific assessment of proposals to cull
marine mammals. Now, more than 30 years after
that 1981 meeting, wildlife culls the world over are
still being implemented without adequate scientific
assessment. 84 This example alone reveals the
hypocrisy of governments and agencies that claim
to base their conservation decisions – including
decisions to cull – on the “best available science”.
ECONOMICS, CONSERVATION, AND THE
REAL WORLD
Over the past 30 years or more, economics
– or more precisely, a branch of economic
theory known as “neoclassical economics” 85
– has become the dominant paradigm in the
field of environmental conservation. 86 We see
its influence, particularly, in discussions of
Sustainable Development and the “sustainable
use” of animals. In the latter case, the principles
of neoclassical economics provide the foundation
for the so-called “use-it-or-lose-it” philosophy
of the self-described – but misnamed –“wise
use” movement that argues that animals like
elephants must “pay their own way” in order to
be conserved. The naïve argument that legalized
trade will reduce poaching and promote the
conservation of elephants (not to mention rhinos
and other endangered species) reflects the flawed
principles of neoclassical economics and a denial
of the lessons of history. 87
One major issue with the economic approach
to conservation is that it has been ineffective
at solving environmental problems. 88 This
should not be surprising, given that neoclassical
economics is founded on a number of myths that
simply do not reflect reality. These myths include
the erroneous assumption that market solutions
provide the key to environmental and species
conservation, that ever increasing economic
growth is possible in a finite world and that
environmental commodities (including species)
are interchangeable, 89 having no other value than
their exchange value in the marketplace.
Within the neoclassical economics’ paradigm,
the environment and individual species, including
elephants, are viewed as part of the economic
system 90 or, as some have said, as a “subsidiary of
the economy”. 91 The current preoccupation with
evaluating “ecosystem services” is just the latest
attempt to treat the environment and everything
in it as if money was the common currency of the
biosphere. The fact remains that many ecosystem
components (including the untold millions of
species that remain undescribed by science)
have no economic value whereas others are
undoubtedly “priceless”. 92
Any conservation paradigm that places
economy above the environment or, putatively,
even on the same level (as with sustainable
development), and treats ecosystem components
(everything from fish stocks to elephants) as
interchangeable commodities in the economic
system (the principle of substitutability) has
clearly lost touch with the real world in which
we live. 93 Experience and reason tell us that the
environment, i.e. the biosphere, is paramount. To
pretend otherwise is anthropocentric hubris and
folly. Without a functioning environment, both
society and the economy collapse.
ELEPHANT CONSERVATION,
DEVELOPMENT, AND POVERTY
ALLEVIATION
These days, when the conservation of biodiversity
is discussed within the conservation community,
it is usually paired with something else, whether
it be development, jobs, livelihoods, or poverty
alleviation or eradication. This phenomenon is
the culmination of a 30-year battle within the
conservation community that has done little to
halt the loss of biodiversity, create jobs, improve
livelihoods or alleviate poverty. 94
Sustainable development, for example, has
now been around for more than 30 years. It has
long been criticized for its obvious deficiencies.
Even more tellingly, it has failed to achieve its
objectives, 95 including poverty alleviation. 96
What is truly remarkable is that despite its
failures, it remains the continuing focus of
international conferences and congresses,
including the much heralded UN Conference
on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in Rio
de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 2012. Nor have such
failures prevented neoclassical economics – the
foundation upon which sustainable development
is based – from remaining the dominant
paradigm in conservation today. 97
Meanwhile, on the ground,
“Unsustainable global economic
growth is breaching ecological limits,
increasing social inequality and resultant
instability, and intensifying the eventual
magnitude of climate change”.
98
If humans really want to protect and conserve
the environment, and individual threatened
species such as elephants, we need to change our
approach to conservation. In short, we need a new
conservation paradigm, one that puts the biosphere
and its component species first and foremost. 99
To gain some perspective on present-day global
priorities, consider the following brief summary of
current issues and follow the money:
• We are currently in a conservation crisis.
Extinction rates are some 100-1,000
times pre-human levels. Species losses
are projected to increase sharply in the
future. Scientists say we’re in the midst
of the sixth mass extinction. The world
community spends 8-12 billion dollars per
year addressing biodiversity loss. 100
• It is currently estimated that 1.372 billion
people are living in poverty (defined as
living on $1.25 per day or less). The world
community spends $126 billion dollars per
year on poverty alleviation. 101
• In 2008, we had a global economic crisis.
Financial institutions collapsed. The
International Monetary Fund warned
that the world financial system was on
the ”brink of systemic meltdown”. That
year, the U.S. government injected 770
billion dollars into the US economy. Other
countries soon followed suit. In April 2009,
the G20 countries committed to inject 1
trillion dollars into the global economy “to
curb the financial crisis”.
From these figures alone, it would seem that
conservationists have enough to do advocating for
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