U.S Ban On Ivory

| Monday June 30, 2014 06:59

 

While it’s clear that preventing the sale of your great-grandfather’s ivory cane does nothing to save the life of an African elephant, it may not be so obvious to the average American (or, apparently, to Obama administration bureaucrats) that the majority of African elephants don’t need protecting in the first place.

In Botswana, the country home to one-third of the African elephant population, 150,000 of them inhabit an area about the size of the New York metro area. This is unsustainable. A short drive around the Chobe National Park reveals the destruction the animals have wreaked on the environment since 1990, when the population in the reserve numbered only a few thousand. The once-lush forest has been decimated by the elephants. Soil sullies the water where it was previously held back by a robust root system, and game has died of starvation in their ravaged habitat.

One might forgive the U.S. for its ignorance on how to handle an elephant problem in an obscure nation 6,000 miles away, but one cannot forgive Botswana’s own sloppy handling of the situation. In January Botswana President Ian Khama banned wildlife hunting at the urging of environmentalists. Mr. Khama has been honored internationally by green groups for his conservation efforts, but his actions are hurting Botswanan businesses and wildlife. The ban will no doubt exacerbate the region’s waning biodiversity and eliminate a lucrative source of income for local communities.

Elephants have no natural predator. The population is controlled only by disease, hunting or starvation due to the self-inflicted destruction of their own environment. Large-scale culling is the best solution to this catastrophic problem, but it is rejected by the bunny huggers.

For those Americans whose basements will, as of this week, be cluttered with devalued antiques, misguided conservationism is a nuisance. For Botswana, it’s detrimental to the environment, the economy and the elephants.(Wall Street Journal)