The Problem of Animal Poaching in Africa

Poaching and the sale of rare animals have been a major problem in Africa for many years. Today the killings continue despite tremendous efforts made by African wildlife authorities and environmental groups. Earlier this year, more than 1,200 ivory was found in tanzania and situation is still far from what it should be.

This year, the news of poaching in Africa has been reported on several occasions. In recent years, wildlife officials in south Africa have announced a catastrophic statistic that 558 rhino has been killed in 2014 and the number of deaths have skyrocketed since then. It is not just the rhinos dying however. In 2013, an estimated 20,000 elephants were killed and the elephant was hit hard. From mozambique to chad, wildlife authorities have reported a large increase in poaching for the ivory trade throughout africa. Since the early 1970s, ivory was used for treatment of various diseases from hangovers to cancer and increased enrichment of carvings. International campaigns have begun, security has increased and wildlife sanctuaries are being built to protect the animals from poachers. Rhinoceroses used to be plentiful in Africa, but human activity through poaching and habitat destruction has crushed their numbers. In fact, poaching in south africa time high in 213 with poachers primarily seeking the rhino’s horn. Some cultures believe rhino horns are an aphrodisiac, while others covet them for decorations.

Through the economic standpoint, elephants and rhinos are one of Africa's biggest sources of income. They are used in safaris, and if poaching rates increase, one of the most important parts of the safaris are gone. “Just as some people unfortunately find a dollar value to the death of the creature, the people of Africa can benefit from the life of them through the tourism industry. The safaris are marketed to people wanting to see the “Big 5”, of which the Rhino is one of”(Wardlow). Elephants and rhinos are used as a source of income that's not poaching, so if this method of killing the animals pushes them to extinction, some of africa's biggest sources of income will drastically change.

Experts believe that the only way to stop poaching is to have harsher punishments. In just kenya, elephant population has gone from 167,000 to 19,000 due to illegal hunters. The increase in illegal poachers and the deaths of elephants and rhinos is due to the price increase in ivory. Thirty years ago, ivory was $300 a kilo. Nowadays, poachers can easily make $2,500 or more from a single bull elephant. Cynthia Moss of the Amboseli Trust for Elephants enhanced on this by saying, “In a country where most people earn less than a dollar a day, that would be several salaries for somebody”. Moss uses this claim as an explanation to why people start working as a poacher. The increasing magnitude and sophistication of elephant poaching may necessitate higher per- unit-area anti-poaching costs in heavily hit areas, although the deployment of novel, high tech solutions such as unmanned aerial vehicles and infrared remote cameras may simultaneously drive costs down. Another way to prevent the poaching of rhinos and elephants is to cut off African ties with China. Ivor is a material used in art objects and jewelry where the ivory is carved with designs. china is a consumer of the ivory trade and accounts for a significant amount of sales. In 2012, the New York times reported on a large upsurge in ivory poaching, with 70% of all illegal ivory flowing to china.

Through the ethical standpoint, the killing of elephants and rhinos are morally unjust and needs to be stopped as soon as possible. Luckily, there are people taking action to stop this. In a four year period, the lungwana integrated resource development project, had wildlife scouts arrest 2,406 people and confiscated 3,391 guns. However, this was not enough to save the animals in north lungwana. In 1992, the north lungwana national park was home to 17,000 elephants, but has dramatically decreased to 5,000. As for the rhinos, the number went from 8,000 to none in a matter of 2 decades. The question people ask is “Why should we care?” rhinos are an umbrella species, which is a species that affect the integrity of an ecosystem and the survival of other species. Without rhinos, animals such as lions and vultures get affected by this. Another reason why to care is because similar to pollution, recycling, environment preservation, the nest generation may not ever get to see rhinos and elephants.

Developing wealth and financial development in Asia have expanded the interest for Africa's regular assets, including natural life and untamed life items. The rising cost of ivory and rhino horn on the underground market, joined with hundreds of years old conventions of esteeming these items as either materialistic trifles (on account of ivory) or customary drug (on account of rhino horn), sustain the worthwhile unlawful exchange. In addition, the choice by CITES to permit two erratic offers of elephant ivory after the 1989 ivory boycott revived the ivory exchange. It's a choice that frequents the mainland's elephants right up 'til today. Different elements adding to the advancement of natural life wrongdoing in Kenya incorporate the expansion of little arms and light weapons from neighboring nations, for example, Somalia, which are utilized in untamed life poaching and banditry. The permeable Kenya-Somalia outskirt specifically has given chances to efficient, profoundly talented Somali groups with better capability than traverse into Kenya and take shelter in ensured territories along the fringe, which fill in as places of refuge. A significant number of the Somali activists pushed out from their domains of impact and control participate in natural life poaching as they correct and come back to the field of fight. Thus, local and at last worldwide clashes and uncertainty are floated by natural life poaching and dealing.

KWS is legitimately commanded to implement Kenya's untamed life laws and guidelines. This order incorporates wiping out poaching in secured zones and lessening it to its absolute minimum somewhere else. Thus, KWS has set up explicit security methodologies to address natural life wrongdoing. The office's law authorization unit works intimately with other law implementation offices in all issues of natural life security at the neighborhood, territorial and universal dimension. Organized commitment of different law requirement offices, government organizations, neighborhood networks, traditions, fringe control and movement specialists, farmers and other protection partners has escalated and is actualizing explicit security procedures to counter poaching dangers and other natural life violations. Coordinated effort and commitment with legal executive experts in numerous pieces of the nation have likewise increased and further added to full requirement of natural life laws. Territorially, Kenya's cross-fringe coordinated effort with Tanzania and Uganda is focusing on violations of a transboundary nature and yielding outcomes in fighting unlawful exercises along shared outskirts. Kenya has been additionally upheld by worldwide and local law implementation bodies, for example, the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) and the Lusaka Agreement Task Force, which have been instrumental in encouraging, planning and offering support with transnational wrongdoing.

Moreover, preservation gatherings, for example, the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) and its accomplices are encouraging network and transborder assurance of natural life territories, organizing their endeavors with KWS and supporting the organization in accomplishing its objectives of checking untamed life wrongdoing in the nation. For instance, AWF as of late upgraded KWS existing Canine Detection Unit with extra mutts and backing for preparing. The Canine Detection Unit is in charge of identifying stash natural life items, for example, ivory and rhino horn at airplane terminals and seaports, in this way blocking the dealing procedure. AWF and its accomplices are likewise leading workshops in different regions in Kenya to illuminate nearby justices, police, Customs and immigration authorities, networks, and others, a considerable lot of which are ignorant of the degree and effect of the poaching and dealing emergency, about the current natural life laws and the requirement for authorizing them.

While most African countries outlaw the killing of elephants and rhinos, the enforcement of these policies aren’t actually well enforced. Anti-poaching units such as park rangers, are heavily underpaid, corrupt, and sometimes don’t have enough skill to the point where they can easily be gunned down by poachers. Luckily, there are many examples to show countries that have fought poaching successfully and were able to raise the population count of rhinos and elephants. Some countries are able to lower the amount of poaching in a peaceful and unharming way, but unfortunately the countries that work to prevent poaching lethally, are the countries that have the biggest changes. CITIES or The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, is an agreement between nations to regulate the trade of Wildlife. With This, countries such as Kenya would make u sure to not sale any ivory, so if anyone was looking to sell, the Ivory would be confiscated. While this was a non lethal way of protecting these animals, a park in India named Kaziranga seems to be the best rhino preserve in the world, and they protect animals lethally. Justin Rowlett, explained that, “There were just a handful of Indian one-horned rhinoceros left when the park was set up a century ago in Assam, in India's far east. Now there are more than 2,400 - two-thirds of the entire world population”. that endeavors to raise the non-poaching wage rate Lethal 'shoot first; make inquiries later' approaches can annoy humanistic moral sensibilities, particularly over the absence of fair treatment and the possibility that the discipline ought to be relative to the wrongdoing. Be that as it may, the odds of being captured in numerous nations is thin. Poaching is regularly observed as a harmless wrongdoing. As a general rule, it is a long way from harmless, with 1,000 enemy of poaching officers slaughtered worldwide in the previous ten years. In the event that a poacher is gotten and rebuffed, there are bounty more to have their spot.