Elephants are worth 76 times more when they're alive than dead, according to a new analysis released this past weekend. The report follows on the heels of findings by WWF that the world has lost 50 percent of its wildlife over the past 40 years, with more than half of African elephants killed for ivory in just one decade.
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The analysis, conducted through the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust's iworry campaign, compared the value of elephants to local economies to profits netted through the illegal ivory trade. Between January and August 2014, researchers tallied approximately 17.8 metric tons of ivory seized worldwide, harvested from 1,940 poached elephants. Most of these seizures occurred in Kenya, Gabon, China, and Vietnam, countries identified by CITES as doing relatively little to stem the tide of black-market ivory.
In their report, iworry estimated the raw-ivory value of a poached elephant to be $21,000. In contrast, a living elephant is worth more than $1.6 million over its lifetime, largely because of its eco-tourism draw. The report lists travel companies, airlines, and local economies as benefitting from this largess of the world's largest land mammal, whereas the ivory trade may fund criminal and terrorist groups.
"The value of elephant tourism is extremely high, with a living elephant worth a shocking 76 times more alive in the savannah than in the market place," said Rob Brandford, iworry campaign director. "Protecting Africa's elephants makes monetary sense and in the long term elephants are worth more alive roaming the world's savannah and forests than their tusks are sitting on a mantle. That’s a powerful argument to convince policy makers."
The seizure of 17.8 metric tons of ivory is likely just a drop in the bucket. The report states that developed countries intercept only about 10 percent of contraband good such as ivory, meaning that up to 178 tons of ivory may have been trafficked this year—the result of 19,400 elephants killed.
Before the advent of plastic, ivory was commonly used to make cutlery handles, piano keys, and other consumer goods with. While some of the global demand for ivory was satiated with the dug-up tusks of extinct mammoths, more often it was sourced from living animals.
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Elephant image via Shutterstock.