To Sympathize with Wildlife Offenders or Not
That is the question
“DESPITE begging for mercy, a single mother of 11, including an infant, has been sentenced to six years imprisonment for illegal possession of 30 kilograms of elephant ivory.” This story made headlines on social media and was even featured on a popular radio talk show a few weeks ago.
On face value, it is easy to sympathize with this single mother and to label her a victim of a harsh sentence. Some people who commented on this story even wondered why it is always “poor” Zambians who are arrested for wildlife crime while the big bosses, the masterminds walk freely. This is a valid question, and on face value, it may appear that the law is out to get poor Zambians.
However, things are not always what they appear to be. There’s usually a lot to uncover when one takes a closer look. To begin with, stories of people being arrested and even jailed for wildlife related crimes are on the rise. So, while the story of the single mother got national media coverage, many similar stories went unreported, or merely reported on community radio stations.
The significance of this is that the single mother’s story is not isolated. It is one of many cases of people being jailed for committing wildlife crimes in Lusaka and across the country. These seemingly isolated cases are actually connected. The people involved are involved with the same serious, organized, transnational criminal syndicates which hire poachers and middlemen from different parts of the country to do their bidding. When you add together the seemingly small quantities of ivory that is handled by individual poachers and middlemen, the total impact on our Zambian wildlife you get is staggering.
A 2010 report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) shows that in 2002, authorities in Singapore seized 6,200kg of ivory that originated almost entirely from Zambia. The report also revealed that a 6,000kg ivory consignment that shipped from Zambia was seized in the Philippines in late 2005.
Let’s do a bit of mathematics. Elephants have two tusks (made of ivory), which are estimated to weigh between 23-45 kilograms each for African species. If we assume that the two seizures above involved elephants with 23kg tusks, then at least 265 elephants were poached from national parks and game management areas in Zambia to come up with a total of 12,200 kilograms of ivory.
This leads us to another harsh fact – almost all the ivory harvested in Zambia leaves the country. Organized criminal networks engage local poachers in low-income African countries, like Zambia, to kill elephants and harvest ivory, which is passed on to local traffickers and middlemen, like the single mother, who ensure that it is sent outside Africa. The local poachers are only benefitting from a fraction of the profit that the foreign dealers will ultimately make from selling the contraband but are often the ones facing the 5-year jail sentence.
By killing our elephants and sending ivory to China, Vietnam, and other countries in Asia, with a thriving black market demand for wildlife products, these few poachers and middlemen are actually making Zambia as a country poorer, while enriching criminal gangs outside Africa. The harshest effects of this are felt by the many communities in Zambia that depend on legal nature-based enterprises like tourism for jobs and general livelihood. When populations of elephants and other wildlife dwindle, it is impossible to reap benefits from tourism and other wildlife-based enterprises, so these communities of thousands of Zambians, which often have limited alternative sources of income, take the hit as their livelihoods are destroyed.
It is clear that Zambia does not benefit from dead elephants because while the illegal ivory trade may be lucrative in Asia, Zambia needs live elephants, in large numbers, to grow and sustain tourism and other nature-based enterprises. So, in a way, anyone dealing in illegal ivory, which requires elephants to be killed, is working against the economic and ecological aspirations of many law-abiding Zambians.
Something else to consider is that the law is clear on consequences of engaging in wildlife crimes. For example, section 130 of the Zambia Wildlife Act No. 14 of 2015 states that a person who is in possession of, sells, buys, imports a prescribed trophy in contravention of this Act, is liable, upon conviction to minimum sentence of five years imprisonment, without the option of paying a fine.
This means regardless of whether you are rich or poor, educated or not, male or female etc., as long as you are found in illegal possession of prescribed trophies, like ivory, you will be jailed if you are found guilty. This also explains why the bosses or masterminds of the illegal wildlife trade are rarely caught. They convince others to move illegal wildlife products for them so that when things go sour, it is these middlemen who are arrested and jailed because they are the ones in illegal possession of wildlife products.
To sum things up, it is easy to sympathize with and label some wildlife criminals as victims, but this handful of individuals are harming our country by stealing our resources and putting them in the hands of a greedy few in developed countries. The good news is that we can help ourselves, our friends, our, families and our country by sharing information about the dangers the illegal wildlife trade has on local communities. We must also convince the people we care about to avoid prison by staying away from any illegal activity involving wildlife. Lastly, we must all participate in protecting the country’s wildlife and habitats, instead of watching from the terraces while foreign organized criminal networks wipe us clean of our God-given natural resources, using our own people.