During President Xi Jinping’s visit to Africa earlier this month, the Chinese leader captured headlines announcing China’s commitment of U.S. $60 billion to Africa development projects, including money for infrastructure, poverty reduction, agriculture, and security among other areas.
The financial pledge announced at a China-Africa summit known as the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) was a marked increase from the $20 billion committed by China to Africa in 2012. China also said it would help establish an African Centre for Disease Control.
Yet, while rivals may well have viewed the announcement as China’s latest bid for friends and resources, an elephant-sized opportunity exists for China-U.S. cooperation in finally ending the ivory trade.
While the Chinese demand that fuels poaching and worsens the plight of Africa’s dwindling elephant population is rightly criticized, less widely known is that the United States has also been a major market for ivory.
This September, however, President Barack Obama built on a May announcement by Xi that China would begin phasing out legal, domestic ivory sales and manufacturing.
Following a Sept. 24-25 State visit by Xi hosted by Obama, the White House issued a fact sheet stating that the two nations “commit to enact nearly complete bans on ivory import and export, including significant and timely restrictions on the import of ivory as hunting trophies, and to take significant and timely steps to halt the domestic commercial trade of ivory.”
Now comes the time for a plan of action that ensures not just more new laws and regulations but also necessary and effective enforcement.
“We will strictly control ivory processing and trade until the commercial processing and sale of ivory and its products are eventually halted,” Zhao Shucong, head of China’s State Forestry Administration, was reported to have said at an event earlier this year where nearly 1,500 pounds of confiscated elephant tusks and ivory carvings were destroyed to help underscore Beijing’s commitment to stamping out the trade.
With China typically cited as the No. 1 consumer of ivory and other wildlife products, both the government’s actions and a consumer culture change will be critical to conserving the world’s wildlife.
By some counts, Africa’s elephant population has dropped from 1.2 million in 1989 to just 420,000 in 2012.
The story is the same in Asia, as economic development and consumer demand threaten a growing number of wildlife species. More must be done to ensure their survival amidst the ongoing rush to development.
As nations build more infrastructure to connect the region and speed economic growth, elephants and other wildlife are too often collateral damage. Financiers of such development, whether local or foreign – including the new China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank – must play a role also in safeguarding Asia’s animal life and environment.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) — the world’s oldest and largest global environmental organization, with more than 1,200 government and NGO members — classifies the Asian elephant as endangered, with no more than 50,000 living in isolated populations across the region. The World Wildlife Fund estimates that the number is much lower — with no more than 25,000 living in the wild.
So, what might China and the United States do to help ensure not just Africa’s but also Asia’s elephants survive in the wild? Southeast Asia analyst Jose B. Collaza and I argue for several steps.
First, all governments need stronger legislation and enforcement against poaching and the illegal ivory trade. Here, China’s move from rhetoric to measurable and time-based actions should be welcomed, encouraged, and mirrored. Hong Kong, for example, also must act.
Elsewhere, in Southeast Asia, lax enforcement of existing laws, particularly in the “Golden Triangle” area encompassing Laos, Thailand and Myanmar, has made this area a hub for the sale of ivory and elephant body parts. This needs to stop. Education will also be key in reducing demand.
Second, field research is necessary to better determine how many elephants live in the wild and their living habits. Present population figures are at best “guesstimates” of the true number of wild elephants. Accurate data will yield dividends regarding how to best design programs to protect Asia’s remaining elephants, whether in South or Southeast Asia.
Third, as Asia’s long tradition of domesticated elephants fades, the capture of juvenile elephants for tourism purposes must be halted. That is as true in China as it is in the United States.
Finally, we need to acknowledge that what elephants truly need to survive is space. This means creating elephant sanctuaries or buffer zones around economic hubs to decrease human-elephant conflict.
None of this is easy as China and other Asian countries develop their economies – as do the nations of Africa – and rightly focus on improving their citizens’ standard of living.
In an interview, former Houston Rockets basketball star and now conservation advocate Yao Ming said he might have connected with Africa particularly because “many animals there are bigger than me.” Regardless of individual motives, the efforts of all of China’s citizens, whether celebrities or everyday people, will help ensure that China is and is seen as a more responsible stakeholder in this world – in Africa or closer to home.
China and the United States have now committed to cooperate further in “joint training, technical exchanges, information sharing, and public education on combating wildlife trafficking, and enhance international law enforcement cooperation in this field,” according to the White House.
Whether the elephants of Africa and Asia or China’s own iconic panda, the world – no matter how much richer economically – will be a poorer place without them. That is a lesson that the United States has learned and that China must also take to heart as it both develops and assists African nations in their own development. The world’s indigenous wildlife is an asset, not a barrier to growth. That, too, is an elephant-sized message that both China and the United States can continue to cooperate on communicating.
