Illegal Wildlife Trade: A Need to Shift our Focus
Interview with Herb Raffaele by Fauna and Flora International – US Section
How did the conservation initiatives you worked on intersect with the issue of illegal wildlife trade?
To place my comments in context, when I was with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which was 30 years, there were other divisions that dealt with wildlife trade primarily through CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) and the Endangered Species Act. In the Division of International Conservation, which I managed, we dealt with trade more indirectly. We had a very strong connection to trade in the sense that we had the funding to work with the animals and the countries involved. We had the funding to do the conservation projects to help address the problems that illegal wildlife trade created.
As our programs grew, I started to realize we were missing the boat on some key things. We had great on the ground projects for African elephants and rhinos for instance. But the numbers of these species were still declining, and the value of their tusks and horns was going up. We were spending roughly two million dollars per year on African elephant conservation alone, and close to that on the Asian elephant, rhino and tiger programs. We were addressing the threats to animals on the ground, but we weren’t adequately addressing the causes of those threats.
How did you start to address the way the conservation program looked at illegal wildlife trade?
Everyone is concerned about poaching. You see animals dead with their tusks torn out or their horns cut off, and it’s terrible and sickening. So, there is a powerful tendency to address the problem by funding anti-poaching projects. But, despite the obvious importance of anti-poaching, we were not addressing the fundamental cause of the killings, which was increased demand. In my own experience, when we discussed this issue internally, lead staff seemed to have endless reasons why we shouldn’t address the demand issue. But if you don’t address demand, the value of elephant ivory goes up, the value of rhino horn goes up, and the problem gets worse. This seemed to me to be very clear. Yet it wasn’t getting the attention it deserved.
If you’re a specialist who worked with elephants your whole career, when you see elephants dying, the first thing you want to do is stop the killing. That is a totally normal response. Nevertheless, the cause of the deaths is rooted in a demand for the product which is based far, far away – primarily China in the case of ivory. However, what does an expert on African elephants, Asian elephants, Bengal tigers, mountain gorillas, or the like, know about the complex cultures of countries on a different continent which may be causing the problem? We knew next to nothing about what was happening there. Field experts in Africa had little interest in establishing a significant program of demand reduction in China because they were so focused on providing funding to stop the killing in Africa.
It turns out that this situation is not at all unique to the issue of illegal wildlife trade. It is widespread in many other aspects of the conservation field. But it was especially conspicuous with regard to the poaching crisis. As a consequence of this imbalanced approach, there are very few programs to address the root causes of poaching. But those there have been very powerful. The best example relates to shark fin soup. As a result of a relatively modest campaign in China to address attitudes on the subject, the Chinese government outlawed the serving of shark fin soup at all government events.
Amy Salzman’s recent article in Fauna & Flora pointed out that we need a balanced approach to the poaching crisis. That is true. At the same time, however, it is essential to pay particular attention to the aspect of the problem that is most critical to its solution, especially if that component is being poorly addressed.
Such is the case with elephant, and rhino and tiger poaching. And that key element is the need to drive down demand – demand reduction. We’re not doing much of it and we’re not doing it effectively – until we make that the primary focus of elephant conservation the massacre of elephants is only going to get worse. Utterly regrettable.
What does it mean to address “demand reduction”?
We have to identify who wants ivory. It’s not used in any significant way locally in Africa, it’s exported. So where is it going? Apparently, the growing middle class in China has adopted ivory as a status symbol for wealth and prosperity. Further, that middle class has been growing rapidly and so demand for ivory has grown along with it. This appears to be the main reason ivory has become more valuable.
Studies need to be done to better understand the market, who’s buying it, for what purpose, and most importantly, how the attitudes of ivory purchasers might most effectively be changed. It is essential that we figure out how to reach out to these individuals. A similar situation occurred in the United States with the use of furs and feathers in the hat and garment industries. We don’t see much fur or feathers in clothing anymore because there was an effective campaign to change public attitudes on this issue. That’s what has to be done in China, a campaign to change attitudes.
At USFWS, the Division of International Conservation was organized regionally. Our China branch ultimately took the lead in engaging the Chinese. It met with Chinese Americans and talked to them to get feedback on how best to address the issue and how Chinese Americans might help. The branch also networked with our governmental counterparts in China (as did the Service’s wildlife trade divisions) about potentially collaborating on demand reduction for ivory. In that regard I went to China and met with high level forestry officials to propose collaboration. It was a particularly interesting meeting, because despite the presence of 8-10 Chinese representatives in the meeting, only their top official ever spoke. Regrettably, he indicated that the situation was being addressed – they didn’t need our help.
Even though the official word was “no thank you,” there were meeting participants lower down the ranks who later told us of their desire to collaborate. This was approximately four years ago, so likely there has been some progress since then. Important to note is that we did not point fingers at China. The U.S. has plenty of conservation shortcomings of its own. We offered to collaborate. The development of mutual respect and trust is the only way for any conservation effort to be effective.
In my time with USFWS one of our most substantive and effective accomplishments on this front was to provide funding to groups like Wild Aid and PCI Media Impact, two groups which are extraordinary in their initiatives to address demand reduction.
For example, one project with Wild Aid supported public service announcements with the actor Jackie Chan and former basketball player Yao Ming who are icons in China. We provided groups like Wild Aid and PCI Media impact, the latter a group that used radio soap operas to great effect to change local conservation values for the better, small amounts of funding. The big challenge was to move beyond effective, but small-scale, limited-focus projects, towards a comprehensive, broad-spectrum campaign. Good things are being done regarding demand reduction – but they need to be scaled up dramatically.
The problem we’re talking about now has nothing to do with the experts or the animals themselves. Our experts are great in their field. However, because the crux of the dilemma has to do with human attitudes and values rather than elephant ecology, we need a new kind of expertise that we haven’t tapped into before. To address demand reduction we need experts with completely different skill sets, like marketing. Such a refocusing is challenging, but essential.
Are you hopeful about efforts to combat illegal wildlife trade in the near future?
I have tremendous hope because demand reduction has only been minimally addressed. The good news is there is a potential solution to this crisis that hasn’t been adequately developed and invested in yet. I see a big opportunity for FFI to move in this direction. FFI is poised to do this because it’s a long-standing NGO that has placed an emphasis on building social connections in addition to direct animal conservation.
FFI has substantial experience working with communities and local groups and a sensitivity to the human aspect of conservation. That’s an important starting point. FFI is in a position to move in the direction of addressing attitude shifts. One of the feature programs of FFI has been the work in Nicaragua on sea turtles with Jose Urteaga. What’s so great about Jose is that he recognizes that conservation is a human problem, it’s not just about raising hatchlings and releasing them into the wild. He’s sensitive to human needs and addresses them with local communities. This kind of work gives me confidence that FFI will gain traction with the illegal wildlife trade challenge.
The problem of demand for elephant ivory is not a unique one. The demand for wildlife parts is a much bigger problem than just ivory, but ivory is the issue that is a hot topic at the moment. We’re talking elephant ivory today, but in short order it’s going to be something different. Indicative is the fact that we’re focusing on the wildlife species – the African elephant in this case. Yet, it is the value system in a society that typically causes the underlying problem. This holds true across the board.
One last thought on the subject. About 10 years ago, I was in a meeting with the director of wildlife for Mexico. He lamented Mexico’s many unsuccessful attempts to conserve its wildlife using U.S. approaches in his country. He then stated that he had finally come to realize that these failures were due to ignoring that nation’s extraordinary cultural diversity when making biodiversity conservation decisions. As a result, Mexico adopted a new policy of including cultural perspectives in all of its conservation decision-making. Mexico had come to understand that there needs to be a balance between science and culture — that culture matters. In the U.S. we are not there yet. We continue to downplay the importance of culture in how we conduct conservation initiatives. This must change if we hope to address effectively our issues. We can’t just focus on science, people matter.