On Assignment: A Conversation with Dereck and Beverly Joubert

“Anybody who comes out into nature, whether it’s toward polar bears or elephants or the great apes or anything, and wishes to destroy it, is acting selfishly. They may say they want to do it for reasons they think can justify, like conservation, but really and truly it’s a selfish act. You go out to Africa to shoot an elephant, but not because you love elephants or otherwise you wouldn’t shoot them. You go out so that you can acquire it, so you can have it on the wall — your wall — rather than leave it there for other people, hundreds of other people, to see.”

— Dereck Joubert

Dereck Joubert, talking on the phone from New York’s Lincoln Center alongside his filmmaker wife Beverly Joubert, says the traffic in New York is brutal. HIs word.

”It’s the reason we’re late,” he says simply, and it’s not hard to imagine the traffic being a shock to the system after years living in Botswana’s Okavango Delta, filming, photographing and studying the vast ecosystem’s natural rhythms.

The Jouberts are talking to me for my day job: Their three-part, four-years-in-the-making nature film Okavango: River of Dreams is about to make its North American television debut, Wednesday on PBS’s Nature showcase, and while they don’t need the publicity exactly, it can’t hurt. (An account our conversation specific to the film can be found  at TVWorthWatching.com, linked here: http://www.tvworthwatching.com/post/Life-and-Death-in-the-Long-Grass-PBS-Nature-Takes-Viewers-Into-the-Heart-of-the-African-Wilderness-in-Epic-Three-Part-Miniseries.aspx

They’re running late, owing to the kind of traffic that’s  impossible to imagine from a wilderness area some 15,000 kms² (5,800 sq miles), but once they start talking about their life’s passion, it’s hard to let go. They have a meeting to get to, with executives of PBS’s New York affiliate WNET — part of the international consortium that financed River of Dreams — but more than 30 minutes later, Dereck and Beverly Joubert are still talking. The meeting will just have to wait.

The Okavango, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, faces many of the same issues — climate change, habitat loss, human encroachment — the rest of the natural world faces.

Lately, though, the Okavango has had to deal with a whole new challenge.

The government of Botswana has lifted a five-year ban on elephant hunting, owing to growing conflict between humans and the animals, which sometimes destroy crops, and the Jouberts are agitated and annoyed.

Dereck Joubert has actively campaigned against hunting at international symposiums chaired by big players CITES, IUCN, SADC and the UN, while Beverly Joubert has made numerous documentary programs about the subject. The pair are Explorers-in-Residence at National Geographic, and have devoted most of their working lives to studying and getting to know elephants in their natural habitat. Botswana is home to some 130,000 elephants — the world’s largest population — of an animal increasingly under threat around the world.

Dereck Joubert doesn’t pull any punches in his disdain for anyone who’d want to shoot an elephant for the trophy wall, and he’s unafraid to say so out loud. He’s long past the point of social niceties and diplomacy on the subject, even though, around the world, environmental activists are increasingly harassed, threatened and even murdered for speaking out, whether it’s against misuse of power or just old-fashioned greed.

Trophy hunting is just not on, as far as the Jouberts are concerned, regardless of any arguments against.

Joubert has heard the economic argument so often that it’s now like a red flag to a bull, as far as he’s concerned.

“The economics of it all don’t make any sense. People say, ‘Well, the money that I spend, that I give to go and act selfishly, protects the elephants from a broader, relatively intangible threat.’ 

©Beverly Joubert

That is not the motivation. The motivation is that you’re going out there to kill it for yourself. Nobody’s going out there to kill it because they hate killing and they want to do something for conservation. The core of this is a selfish act. And in my opinion, that’s morally bankrupt.”

Beverly Joubert — still recovering from serious injuries she sustained while filming buffalos in the middle of the night,  ironically enough — is equally blunt in her own assessment.

“I really do believe we should all be living in harmony with nature,” she says simply. “Too often I think people forget that we’re just another species on the planet. I suspect that those who go out to kill are trying to be that superior ape. Well, we can be the superior ape. We have the intelligence. But we can live side-by-side with them, and respect them, without having to kill them. That’s what intelligence is.”

Beverly Joubert is worried what will happen now that the hunting ban has been lifted. The new rules come into effect in the new year.

“When the ban was originally enacted we had areas where life came back in a glorious way. We felt that this was what a paradise on earth should be like. And now it’s going to go through another change, and that’s concerning. The change will be man-made, and that’s something we need to be watching. The Okavango is, in almost every way, a wonderful base-line study area for nature. We’re going to be able to see if there is extreme damage.”

The larger picture — climate change — is creating its own problems, because everything is tied to habitat loss.

“We had a screening of the film last night, and

those questions came up from the audience as well.

“They were all wondering how the climate crisis is going to affect Africa. Well, it’s happening. It’s definitely there. We’ve seen it in the violent storms around the globe, and it’s very evident in Botswana. Temperatures are rising every year. Every year, we get the next record high. And now we’re in a drought again, in many parts of Africa.

“There are a lot or profound changes going on, and obviously the environment is one of them. Okavango is really one of the last pristine places left on the planet. We have seen it in a state of flux, through man, over the last 30 years. Areas of the Okavango that used to be hunted lost a huge population of wildlife, and that was very evident and really concerning. That’s why the former president stopped all hunting.”

The Jouberts’ stay in New York has coincided with a series of climate conferences and protests, from the UN to Wall Street. In Botswana, the Jouberts established the Great Plains Foundation which, as part of its remit, works with young people locally to help further the message of conservation. They have never met Greta Thunberg, but it’s only a matter of time before her name comes up in conversation.

“We’re big fans of Greta,” Dereck Joubert says. “What is interesting about that question is that, through Great Plains, we spend quite a bit of time and money and effort working with children around Greta’s age, funnily enough, in Botswana, looking for and nurturing that voice of, not innocence, but that voice of outrage in a child’s way to say that, no, this is not okay. The children have rights, too. They have a right to the future. More and more, we’re starting to hear that in the villages in Botswana.”

©Dereck Joubert, Beverly Joubert

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Elephants Win Reprieve. But For How Long?

As always, pry beneath the surface and there’s more there than meets the eye. In a post-truth world, where facts don’t count for much and low-information voters keep electing populists, no news item, it seems, is entirely as it appears.

Word late Friday that CITES delegates meeting in Geneva have decided to keep the ivory ban in place and deny several African countries’ bid to have the ban lifted for a one-off sale of stockpiled elephant tusks — the better to fund conservation efforts with, they insist — has been met with a mixture of relief and tempered euphoria in the Save the Elephant conservation community.

The reason not everyone is doing cartwheels of joy is best summed up by two similar and yet seemingly contradictory headlines. “Bid to allow sale of ivory stockpiles rejected at wildlife trade summit,” the nature site Mongabay (“News & Inspiration from Nature’s Frontline”) reported, and went on to furnish details: “A proposal by Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia and Namibia that would have allowed them to sell their ivory stockpiles has been rejected by 101 votes to 23 at the wildlife trade summit taking place in Geneva.”

Germany’s respected public international broadcaster Deutsche Welle took a more circumspect tack, however, with its heading, “Elephant ivory ban upheld, but legal loopholes remain.”

Those loopholes include the — for now — legal trade in woolly mammoth tusks, which make it possible for illicit ivory — i.e. ivory from elephants that have been illegally hunted — to be traded in the market as legal ivory, as elephant tusks and mammoth tusks can be hard to tell apart. Mammoth tusks used to be relatively rare, but warming permafrost and receding ice in the Arctic is uncovering more buried mammoth tusks all the time. Mammoth tusks are being uncovered in Siberia at such a rapid pace that it may not be long before ivory from mammoth tusks becomes an industry in its own right.

At the very least, mammoth ivory helps feed a market most conservationists wish would just go away entirely.

“We’re pleased with the outcome, but frustrated also that we have to spend all this time having that discussion again when there’s so much work that needs to be done,” International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) policy director Matt Collis told Deutsche Welle.

Kenya drew the hardest line against lifting the ivory ban, backed by several countries — most of them in East Africa — in the African Elephant Coalition (AEC). Kenya opposed the bid by southern African countries, saying one-off sales increase the demand for ivory, making poaching more likely — and profitable — across the continent. Illegal ivory can be passed off as legal with false certificates. This makes protecting Africa’s dwindling wild elephant populations all the more difficult.

In 1930, there were an estimated 10 million elephants in Africa. Today, there are roughly 415,000.

The international ivory trade was outlawed in 1989, in a move  widely credited with saving the elephant from extinction. A temporary lifting of the ban in 1998, to allow one-off sales of stockpiled ivory, caused illegal hunting to triple over a 12-year period between 1999 and 2011. That has only bolstered conservationists’ argument that any kind of trade only increases demand, which in turn feeds the black market.

Even with the ban, about 50 elephants are poached every day to feed demand in Japan, China and Southeast Asia, where ivory is valued for high-end, luxury carvings.

Still, a win is a win. These days, the natural world can use all the help it can get.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/22/cites-wildlife-summit-giraffe-protections-global-trade-parts-saiga-antelope-horn

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Elephants Never Forget. So Why Can’t CITES?

“Earlier, 100,000 elephants lived in Kenya and we didn’t have any noteworthy problem with that. The problem that we have is not that there are now more elephants.”

— Richard Leakey

Here we go again. 

Ever since paleoanthropologist and then-head of Kenya’s Dept., of Wildlife Conservation and Management Richard Leakey famously burned 10 tons of confiscated ivory in October, 1989 — just weeks prior to a CITES meeting that would decide whether to include the elephant on its global list of endangered species — the ivory lobby has sought to overturn the ban on trade in ivory.

And guess what’s back on the agenda at CITES’ once-every-three-years meeting, happening right now, through Aug. 28, in Zurich, Switzerland?

A number of southern African countries, led by Zimbabwe, want to sell their stockpiled ivory — worth an estimated USD $300 million — ostensibly to raise funds for conservation, though given the state of Zimbabwe’s economy, and that government’s tenuous relationship with good governance, no one really believes that.

Botswana, traditionally a safe haven for Africa’s otherwise beleaguered wild elephants, recently incurred the wrath of the international conservation community by lifting its ban on trophy hunting for elephants; the CITES ban on trade in ivory was still in effect, however, and remains so. For the time being.

That may change.

Conservation groups’ nerves are frayed in Zurich right now because just days ago CITES — shorthand for the torturously labeled United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora — lifted the ban on the sale of stockpiled rhino horn in South Africa, again ostensibly to raise funds for the conservation of rhinos.

The problem with elephants is that, right now and depending on who you talk to, there are too many elephants in too small a space in countries like Botswana and Zimbabwe, but too few elephants in once wildlife-rich, tourism-dependent countries like Kenya and Tanzania.

“Why should we have to suffer,” one Namibia farmer and lodge operator told me angrily, a number of years back, “because East Africa can’t handle its poaching problem?”

Even with the ban, elephants face an uncertain future. As recently as five years ago, according to a study by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, some 100 African elephants were being killed every day for their tusks. Today, the Worldwide Fund for Wildlife (WWF) estimates just 415,000 wild elephants remain in Africa. That seems like a large number when one considers that possibly fewer than 10,000 cheetahs remain on the entire planet — but the elephant is a herd animal, remember, not a solitary predator. Sometimes, too, it’s not the total number that tells the story so much as how quickly that number has crashed. Forty years ago, there were more than a million wild elephants. In just 10 years, between 1979 and 1989, the elephant population crashed more than half, from 1.3 million to 600,000.

Despite a promise by China that it would halt ivory-related commerce by the end of 2017, the illegal trade persists. The market is still there.

Ivory is valued for its quality and malleability in high-end, expensive carvings. It’s a status symbol throughout China and  Southeast Asia, owing to its uniquely, close-grained texture, adhesive hardness, mellow colour and pleasing smoothness. 

Ivory is infinitely better — and so more sought-after — than any 

chemical compound or substance created in a lab. Imitation ivory, unlike, say, imitation leather, is virtually unheard of.

How you feel about the ban depends largely on who you choose to believe. 

Conservationists, non-governmental organizations and a handful of African countries, such as Kenya, argue that the ban feeds public awareness of the need to protect one of the world’s most engaging, iconic animals, and sends a message to poachers that they’ll face stiff fines and prison sentences if they’re ever caught.

The ban’s critics argue that a ban has the opposite effect: It feeds the perception that ivory has near-priceless value, because it’s both rare and illegal. Extending the ban on international trade in ivory, they argue, will only further hurt those countries that are already struggling with poverty.

The original ban was enacted in 1990 — just weeks after Leakey’s ivory burn — and proved effective for about 10 years. Starting in 1997, though, CITES granted one-time-only exceptions to Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia to sell a limited amount of ivory.

The effect on wild elephant populations was immediate and dramatic, and not in a good way. Illegal trafficking tripled between 1998 and 2011.

The trouble is that when some ivory is legal and other ivory isn’t, it’s impossible to tell the two apart, let alone enforce laws that keep changing every three years, every time CITES meets.

Worse, once you establish a legal market for a supposedly illegal commodity in one part of the world, the rest of the world can be forgiven for asking why it shouldn’t be legal in their part of the world, too.

The result is, quite simply, a mess.

You would think that, with the evidence of 1998-2011 staring them straight in the face, CITES delegates would get it into their heads by now that one-time-only exceptions to the ivory ban just won’t work, and in fact have the opposite effect. When illegal trafficking triples in a 12-year period, something is clearly amiss somewhere.

They say elephants never forget. So why can’t CITES delegates do the same?

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World Elephant Day: Cloudy Future for World's Largest Land Animal

“Of all African animals, the elephant is the most difficult for man to live with, yet its passing — if this must come — seems the most tragic of all. I can watch elephants, and elephants alone, for hours at a time, for sooner or later the elephant will do something very strange such as mow grass with its toenails or draw the tusks from the rotted carcass of another elephant and carry them off into the bush. There is mystery behind that masked grey visage, and ancient life force, delicate and mighty, awesome and enchanted, commanding the silence ordinarily reserved for mountain peaks, great fires, and the sea.”

— Peter Matthiessen, The Tree Where Man Was Born

Elephants are familiar, majestic, sociable and — like so many wild creatures we share planet Earth with — in trouble.

The threats are the usual suspects but, increasingly, the deepening climate crisis is having a growing and disproportionate effect, owing to drought, famine and overpopulation, exacerbated by overconsumption. 

In areas where elephants still cling to much of their former range — Botswana’s Chobe National Park and the marshlands of Botswana’s Okavango delta, a new, unexpected problem has presented itself: Too many elephants, crowded into too small an area. Already-large elephant herds are growing larger, which in turn is putting more strain on what precious little tree cover and water resources remain.

It’s World Elephant Day today.

That would normally be a day for celebration. As with World Lion Day a few days ago, though, the 2019 edition is more appropriately a day of reflection than a day to celebrate.

It’s a day to reflect on the things that make elephants unique, that give us wonder and joy, and give those who’ve dedicated their lives — and in some cases given their lives — the energy and determination to dig down even deeper.

This World Elephant Day, it’s worth noting that, in addition to being amazing animals, elephants actually make life better for us, often in surprising ways. The conservation NGO Human Nature and the filmmakers behind the documentary My Africa recently singled out four ways.

Elephants plant trees and help fight climate change.

Recent studies show that elephants help protect forests by distributing the seeds of trees. Because they roam over such wide distances, elephants play a key role in spreading tree seedlings. 

Scientists have documented lower tree diversity in forests that have lost elephants. Keeping forests healthy ensures trees continue to store carbon in their trunks, roots and soil, which in turn helps reduce the effects of climate change.

Protecting elephants reinforces local safety and security. 

Poaching and wildlife trafficking undermine the safety of local villages by provoking violence between hunters and communities. At numerous conservancies throughout Africa, such as Kenya’s Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, rangers are trained, credentialed police reservists, who respond to both wildlife and non-wildlife crimes in the area.

Elephants don’t just look after elephants. 

Elephants are engineers. They push over trees, which encourages the growth of grasslands. They excavate waterholes and fertilize the soil, which helps other animals survive. They call it the circle of life for a reason.

Elephants generate much-needed tourist revenue.

A thriving tourist trade enables elephants to bring in money for local communities. A study estimated the tourism value of a single elephant at $1.6 million USD throughout its lifetime.

There’s a reason Botswana remains southern Africaʼs most prosperous country, despite the recent lifting of the ban on trophy hunting. Tourism — most of it centred in the countryʼs verdant, wildlife-rich northwestern corridor — accounts for about 10% of the countryʼs economy. That figure has only grown as Botswana’s reputation as a safe, high-end travel destination has strengthened.

The crisis facing the world’s remaining wild elephants may be dire this World Elephant Day, but if Botswana’s past experience proves anything, it’s that there’s a reason for hope — however small.

©Alex Strachan - David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

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Hope for Elephants

“We have a responsibility toward the other life-forms of our planet whose continued existence is threatened by the thoughtless behavior of our own human species.”

— Jane Goodall

Elephant poaching in Africa may have peaked. A report in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications and reprinted in the May, issue of Science magazine, extrapolated from a survey by ecologists at the University of York (UK), suggests that ivory poaching has dwindled in recent years. Poaching peaked in 2011, when an estimated 10% of all elephants in sub-Saharan Africa fell victim to illegal hunting. Poaching had been on the increase since 2005, when a growing middle class in China flush with cash fuelled the demand for ivory, long treasured for carvings. By 2014, elephant populations across Africa had crashed by roughly a third from the turn of the century, to an estimated population of 350,000 animals.

The annual survey, conducted under the auspices of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species  (CITES), examined elephant carcasses at some 50 sites in parks and game reserves across Africa, to determine which elephants were killed by poachers and which died of natural causes. The survey is key because it’s believed to cover roughly half of the continent’s elephant population. Data collected annually over a 16-year period, from 2002 to 2018, shows that poaching is down two-thirds from 2011’s peak. While still not ideal — field biologists caution that the problem is not solved yet, despite declining demand from China — it hints at a brighter future

for hunted elephants. The major problems facing elephants today are climate change, dwindling food and water resources, and increasing human-wildlife conflict in areas where elephants invade agricultural land set aside for subsistence farms.

Demand from China has declined in part because of that country’s 2017 ban on ivory imports, and because of China’s slowing economy. A celebrity conservation ad campaign fronted by actor Jackie Chan and basketball star Yao Ming proved effective, too.

York ecologist Colin Beale, a lead author of the study,  cautions that elephants aren’t out of the woods yet, however. “It’s too early to be complacent,” Beale told Science magazine. If China’s economy heats up again, elephants may once again find themselves in the firing line.

The problems facing elephants aren’t limited to the question of supply and demand, as the recent lifting of the hunting ban in Botswana shows. Botswana is home to Africa’s largest surviving population of elephants, but too many elephants can result in habitat destruction for all animals. Poaching is also driven by poverty, government corruption and lax enforcement of existing laws.

The situation looks more promising than it did a few years ago, but the world’s largest land mammal isn’t out of the risk zone yet. 

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