It is estimated that the poaching wars in Africa during the late 70s and 80s killed off more than 60% of the African elephant herds. With an international ban on ivory trade in existence since 1989, the herds have stabilized with some countries even facing over-population. The past six years, however, have seen a steady increase in the tonnage of ivory being seized in cargo containers, raising questions about the security of the African herds. Now, new DNA forensic techniques are being forged developed to help wildlife police crack down on ivory poaching. Earth Report investigates.
Man has carved ivory into beautiful objects and traded it since the stone age. So majestic and hard not to miss, in fact, that the ivory poaching wars in Africa during the 70s and 80s killed many of them off.
Dr Sam Wasser, Director, Center for Conservation Biology, University of Washington: Ivory is essentially an incisor tooth that has evolved into a tusk. The drive for ivory just seems to be the fact that it comes from a very majestic animal… elephants went from 1.3 million to 600,000 in ten years. And that loss of 700,000 just surprised the world.
 Elephant numbers were recovering - but they've recently fallen again.
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In 1989, Kenya burned 12 tons of elephant tusks in a dramatic protest to persuade the world to halt the ivory trade. Some say it was a publicity stunt. But later that year, more than a hundred member countries of CITES - the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of wild fauna and flora - voted in favour of a world-wide ban on the trade of ivory. Along with the ban came strong international support for wild life law enforcement.
Michael Wamithi, International Fund for Animal Welfare: To address the issue of run-away poaching, which was decimating wildlife, a crack unit was recruited and trained. We weakened the strong networks that had gained root in Kenya over time, so it became more expensive to get involved in wildlife trafficking, and it really went down… so between 1990 and 1996 we were able to be in control of our national parks.
In addition to increased support for law enforcement, CITES established two elephant monitoring programmes to assess the effectiveness of the ban.
Tom De Meulenaer, Coordinator CITES: MIKE stands for Monitoring of the Illegal Killing of Elephants... We collect a lot of information on about 30 various factors, socio-economic factors, political factors. Collectively, they provide us with an indicator of a level of illegal trade.
Scientists also collect information on elephant carcasses and mortality rates.
Scientist, Kenya Wildlife Service: Normally when an elephant dies of natural death, the body decomposes in a natural way and eventually it’s easy to pull out the tusks. For the poachers, they are in a hurry. They shoot the animals, they want to take the tusks and get away with it immediately before they are found by our security. And this is what they normally do – they have to axe, they break the skull so that they be able to take off the tusks.
Tom De Meulenaer: All the data that we use is vetted by local authorities and by national authorities… it’s as credible as we can get it.
The second CITES monitoring programme is the “elephant trade information system.” It looks at the level of illegal ivory trade – is the illegal trade going up or going down?
Tom De Meulenaer: It collects information from customs offices throughout the world on seizures of ivory, elephant ivory and other elephant products.
 The past six years have seen a steady increase in the tonnage of ivory being seized.
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For the past six years, the elephant trade information system has shown a worrisome trend.
Tom De Meulenaer: In 2004, globally we documented about 10 tons of ivory being confiscated, in 2005, 17 tons, in 2006, a jump to 25 tons of ivory. So, clearly, something is happening.
The data, according to CITES, shows that worldwide large-scale seizures have become far more frequent and larger in scale. But just stopping illegal ivory at some international border is not enough.
Kisamo E. Stephen, Director – Lusaka Agreement Task Force: It is essential to know the origin of the contraband… As law enforcement officer, once you know the origin, then you can allocate more resources to go through the area.
What law enforcement needed was a way to find out where exactly the ivory from poached elephants was coming from. They got their chance with a massive six point five ton seizure of ivory at the port of Singapore in 2002. Packed into six wooden crates were five hundred and thirty-two tusks… And over 41,000 blank personal signature stamps – hankos, as they are known – destined for Japan. It was estimated that more than three hundred elephants had been killed to fill this container. Wildlife police seized the opportunity to try out a unique law enforcement tool, using DNA.
PART TWO
The investigators took samples of the ivory and sent them to the University of Washington in Seattle.
Dr Sam Wasser, Director, Center for Conservation Biology, University of Washington: These are the hankos that were seized in the Singapore seizure. Elephant DNA essentially provides a fingerprint of who that individual is. And it also provides a signature of where the elephant actually came from. For both the tusks and the hankos, one of the critical questions was 'Did this all come from one place or did it come from multiple locations across Africa?'
The first step in the DNA extraction process is to take a sample and pulverize it.
Dr Sam Wasser: In the past when people were trying to pulverize the ivory they would heat it up using saws or a hammer and degrade the DNA.
Liquid nitrogen is used to cool the sample down...
Dr Sam Wasser: That’s the real important breakthrough in this whole method, is that it allows us to pulverize it into a fine powder without degrading the DNA, which is the key. Now we can use a standard tissue extraction kit for DNA and because it's been processed so thoroughly. Once we extract the DNA, the next step is to amplify the DNA from the product.
 DNA tests can accurately source the origin of the tusk or ivory.
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The end result - a genotype is determined for the ivory sample. But that doesn’t get you very far. To be able to assign ivory to a geographical origin — the whole point of this analysis - you have to be able to compare it to something.
Dr Sam Wasser: We have to create, essentially, a geographic reference map of elephant gene frequencies across the whole continent of Africa… wherever elephants range.
And that’s done by taking samples of elephant dung in the field, extracting the DNA… and producing a map.
Dr Sam Wasser: It’s that reference map that we use to compare to the genotype in the ivory to assign its origin.
At the end of the day, the DNA analysis offered up some solid answers.
Dr Sam Wasser: We were able to establish that the majority of the ivory in the Singapore seizure came from an area centred on Zambia.
The more than 41,000 blank signature stamps in the container also gave investigators a glimpse into the end market serviced by these international smuggling syndicates.
Yuki Sakamoto, Director, Japan Wild Life Conservation Society: We know for a fact that Japan is one of the biggest consuming countries of ivory. Ivory was mainly used for hankos. It’s a personal name seal stamp. … Hankos are used instead of a signature. In late ‘60’s the businessmen convinced the general public of Japan that elephant is sacred animal and ivory is sacred material for hankos, and they will invite good fortune for consumers.… the sales of ivory hankos shot up, and also the imports of ivory so rapidly increased.
It’s not illegal to own or sell carved ivory in Japan.
Kazuaki Hoshino, Director, Wildlife, Ministry of Environment: Japan introduced domestic regulation system. The main purpose of this law, to conserve domestic endangered species but at the same time, we use this national registration to control domestic trade of internationally endangered species. This kind of system, I believe, Is very effective in Japan to control domestic trade of the ivory.
According to the law, ivory carving shops like this one, and the ivory tusks they use should be government registered.
Ryoji Kitagawa, Ivory carver: For my generation, it is natural to work the same job as my father. When I was 15, while a student, I studied ivory carving with him. After 18 I started working with my father full time.
However, the law does not require that ivory products like this hanko - carved from a registered tusk - be registered themselves.
Kazuaki Hoshino: Registration of dealers is mandatory but the registration of the product of the ivory is not mandatory. But we have a certification system.
If the original ivory tusk was registered, the government will issue a certificate showing the ivory product came from legal ivory that was in the country prior to the 1989 ivory ban, or was part of a one-off sale by southern African countries in 1999.
 Ivory hankos are much prized, but the registration system does not always work properly.
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Kazuaki Hoshino: This certification system is voluntary system but if the retailer want to sell their product to consumers, we believe they want to have such kind of satisfied sale.
But the registration system has problems.
Yuki Sakamoto: Unfortunately, I don’t think the current regulation is effective. Because the requirements of registration and examination procedure for registration is unclear and not so strict. There is a big black market of ivory in Japan. The illegal traders try to register illegal ivory as legally imported before the ban, and successfully register it.
So even if a hanko has a certificate, there will always be some doubt as to whether it came from legal or smuggled ivory. Poached or not, some argue that lifting the ivory ban and legalizing its trade would help certain some African countries which complain say they have too many elephants.
Tom De Meulenaer, Coordinator CITES: In East Africa and Southern Africa, elephants are doing well, surprisingly well, to the point that actually they… some countries could call them problem animals.
Kazuaki Hoshino: They have man and elephant conflict. The elephant kills local people. And the elephant give the very big damage to the farmer, to crops. So those are very, very severe problems…
It may be lifting the ivory ban, some believe, would decrease the poaching of elephants.
Tom De Meulenaer, Coordinator CITES: Some would say, argue, that actually by providing a licit market, legal market supply of ivory from well-managed elephant populations into well-managed markets, you're going to undercut poaching and reduce the need for illegal trade in ivory. Others say no, by organizing a legal market you will per definition enhance the existing illegal market.
Yuki Sakamoto: Even if Botswana in South Africa has a healthy population of elephants, if the legal trade is reopened, it will activate the illegal market of ivory. And poaching and illegal trade will take all over African continent.
In the meantime, while this argument goes back and forth, the conflict over wildlife in Africa goes on. Recently, three Kenya Wildlife Service rangers and four wildlife poachers supposedly heading into a Kenya rhino park were killed in a shoot-out.
Kisamo E. Stephen, Director, Lusaka Agreement Task Force: There are several reports from war-torn countries, like DRC, massive poaching is going on there… in Chad there are reports of hundred of elephants killed in the field…
The story of contraband ivory, like that found in the Singapore bust, is far from over.
Kisamo E. Stephen, Director, Lusaka Agreement Task Force: What custom officials are seizing at the border is only a fraction of what is shipped or smuggled out of the countries. Four years after the 6.5 seizure, we have received reports of more than 40 tons of ivory which have been intercepted in the Far East and this is only a fraction of what has been smuggled out.
The DNA team is working is finishing up the Singapore bust, and now getting to grips with evidence from three new ivory containers. Getting this origin information to authorities is an utmost priority. But getting the illegal ivory market under control is easier said than done. Criminal syndicates span the globe, while cooperation between relevant enforcement agencies is often lacking.
Emily Kisamo: The issue is that law enforcement needs support. From all levels. From international, national, regional… we need to invest in law enforcement.
Yuki Sakamoto: Ivory is not essential for our use. So the industry should change their minds and shift to other materials. If the Japanese people understand the situation of elephants well, they will hesitate to buy ivory hankos anymore.
Emily Kisamo: The elephant is a keystone species… it plays a big role in the ecology of protected areas. And even in the economic development of our countries, most tourists will like to come and view elephants – they don’t want to come and see the carcasses in the field.
And the new DNA techniques being developed to trace the origin of ivory, could prove to be an invaluable weapon in the war against the poachers.
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