How protecting elephants affects our national security

While lawmakers in New York and New Jersey took actions to help elephants, lawmakers in a number of states have decided not to pass measures that would crack down on the ivory trade, even as elephants die by the thousands in Africa. Special interests have succeeded in killing such bills in Hawaii, Illinois, Oregon and Washington, citing fears that the trade in elephant tusks from trophy hunting might be restricted, or the sale of guns with ivory on them could be stopped.  

It is hard to fathom why lawmakers are hedging on this important issue when there’s so much at stake. It is well known that terrorist groups like Al-Shabaab, Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army and the Janjaweed share a common reliance on poaching to fund their terrorism. They murder elephants with high-powered weapons, saw off their faces to claim the tusks, and sell just that tiny portion of the animals’ bodies for profit. Their utter disrespect for human life and the lives of animals are intertwined; the killing of elephants for their tusks enables the killing of innocent people. 

{mosads}In Africa, elephants are the keystone species in their ecosystems, and the keystone of the ecotourism economy, which is valued in the billions. Kill the elephants and you cripple economic activity that provides livelihoods for millions of people – education for children, jobs for women, homes and health care for families. 

Poachers are killing approximately 35,000 elephants a year, and with every giant beast who falls, so do the hopes of the African people. Since 2009, Tanzania has lost close to 60 percent of its elephants. Mozambique announced its own census of the country’s elephant population in 2015 which revealed that they have lost close to 50 percent of the animals in the past five years. In central Africa, the situation for forest elephants is even more dire. It was said some decades ago that there were a million elephants in the Central African Republic alone. Now, there are 70,000 elephants in the entire group of countries in the center of the continent. Down from 30 million across the continent, there may be less than 500,000 now. 

On Thursday, the. House takes up a spending bill for the Interior Department. One controversial provision would block the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from proposing a federal rule to clamp down on the ivory trade in the United States. Lawmakers who care about elephants, national security and the future of Africa should offer an amendment to strike that language, enabling the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to take action on the issue and do what’s right for elephants, Africa and the world. 

Also, some states are pushing forward with anti-ivory-trading legislation, as New York and New Jersey already have. California’s anti-ivory trading bill has tremendous momentum, and a comprehensive ballot initiative in Washington state – to prohibit trade in the parts of elephants, rhinos, sharks, rays, pangolins, and five other endangered species – is likely to appear on the ballot there this coming November. The measure, which is being led by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen with the support of The Humane Society of the United States and other groups, was endorsed this week by The Seattle Times.

Ivory has no purpose for humans beyond being carved into trinkets or for use in musical instruments, guns, knives or other common goods. The main market for these trinkets is in China and the United States, and China just this month promised to crack down on the trade. It is now up to the United States to step up and close the markets here so that the poaching will wither. We can live without ivory trinkets, but elephants cannot live without their tusks. And African nations cannot live without elephants.

Pacelle is president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States.