Press Release
ELEPHANTS FACE BLEAK AND CRUEL FUTURE IN SOUTHERN AFRICA
25 FEBRUARY 2008“Exasperated and deeply saddened”, was how an Animal Rights Africa (ARA) spokesperson Steve Smit, responded when asked how they felt about the government’s announcement today that the culling of elephants has been reinstated in South Africa.
Since 2004, when SANParks attempted to overturn the moratorium on killing elephants en-masse, ARA has laboured to ensure that culling was not a so-called ‘tool’ allowed in the toolbox of managers of private, provincial and national conservation areas that contain populations of elephants. We were largely responsible for forcing the South African government to engage with stakeholders in the first place. We were also largely responsible for the idea of holding scientific round tables in relation to elephant management. We have opposed the option of culling from the outset, basing our stance on ethical, scientific and historical considerations, and to date, neither the Minister nor any of the pro-culling lobby has been able to produce one shred of evidence to show that there is an ethically or ecologically defensible reason to kill even one elephant in South Africa.
The fact is that the formulation of the government’s policy on elephant management, specifically with regard to culling, has been driven by a chauvinistic, rampant utilization mindset that is deeply rooted in colonialism and apartheid, disregards the inherent value of each individual elephant and has commodified them into unfeeling units purely to be assessed for their recreational and economic value.
Despite the spin and the web of carefully and cleverly constructed language that the government has used to craft the new elephant policy, the real truth is that it is does not protect elephants against the threat of culling at any time that wildlife managers (who are generally pro-culling and support trophy hunting) consider that the number of elephants under their control need to be reduced in terms of their management plan and objectives. The Minister has in fact opened the door to elephant genocide in the SADC region. Only time will tell the extent to which this happens, but with economic and political pressures on managers to make elephant ‘by-products” available to the market, every elephant in South Africa now has a price on its head.
Furthermore, South Africa has signed a SADC regional elephant management plan that actively promotes the killing of elephants as an income generating resource, thereby showing that in spite of public statements expressing respect for elephants and their lives, the Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism has lumped elephants in the same trade bin as a lump of coal. So much for respecting them!
This is truly a devastating day for elephants and for the future of elephants on the African continent - BUT we are not giving up. We will work tirelessly to bring about a situation in South Africa where elephants are “managed” in a manner which respects their rights and dignity, and this simply means that the option to cull elephants is deleted from every elephant management plan. If this requires that we call for tourism and other forms of boycott, then so be it. And it will those who have declared an unjust war on elephants - the current elephant management policy-makers - that will have to take responsibility for this.
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