Colin Bell - The Last Elephants

THE LAST ELEPHANTS

Compiled by Don Pinnock & Colin Bell

Foreword by HRH Prince William, Duke of Cambridge

These desert-adapted elephants in northwest Namibia encapsulate part of what this book is about the often problematic relationship between impoverished rural communities and wildlife. It also examines how rural communities can successfully be incorporated into the wildlife and tourism industry so that elephants and people can live harmoniously, side by side.

Heinrich Van Den Berg. North-west Namibia

Hannes Lochner. Chobe National Park

Africa changes you forever, like nowhere on earth. Once you have been there, you will never be the same. But how do you begin to describe its magic to someone who has never felt it? How can you explain the fascination of this vast, dusty continent, whose oldest roads are elephant paths?

Brian Jackman

Martin Harvey. The Amboseli plains and Mount Kilimanjaro

The generation that destroys the environment is not the generation that pays the price. That is the problem.

Wangari Maathai

Contents

Foreword

An elephant is poached somewhere in Africa every 15 to 20 minutes of every day, every week and every month.

Pieter Ras. Amboseli National Park, Kenya

Scott Ramsay. Mana Pools, Zimbabwe

The Great Elephant Census confirmed what many of us have feared for some time that one of our planets most treasured species is on course for extinction at the hands of poachers, criminal syndicates, warlords and traffickers.

When I was born, there were a million elephants roaming Africa. By the time my daughter Charlotte was born in 2015, the numbers of savannah elephants had crashed to just 350 000. At the current pace of illegal poaching, when Charlotte turns 25 the African elephant could be gone from the wild.

We cannot let this happen. I am not prepared to be part of a generation that lets these iconic species disappear and have to explain to our children why we lost this battle when we had the tools to win it.

We have the opportunity to end the mixed messages we have sent for too long about the value and desirability of wildlife products. We need to make it quite clear and broadcast widely that ivory is a symbol of destruction, not of luxury and not something that anyone needs to buy or sell. We must say that rhino horn does not cure anything and does not need a legal market. We must send a message to the world that it is no longer acceptable to buy and sell ivory, rhino horn or other illegal wildlife products.

This crisis is not just about animals - its also about people. It is some of the worlds poorest who will suffer when their natural resources are stripped from them illegally and brutally. It is families in the worlds most vulnerable regions who suffer when two rangers a week are killed on the frontline of this fight. It is fragile democratic systems in many nations that are at risk from the scourge of war, violence and corruption that the illegal wildlife trade funds and fuels.