The draft strategy is skewed in favour of anthropocentric benefits – economic, spiritual and cultural – and cannot function in practical terms.
Consumptive use of elephants is problematic in that it favours short-term economic revenue over long-term ecological sustainability, the writer argues. (Photo: Don Pinnock)
South Africa’s Draft National Elephant Heritage Strategy, which closed to public comment at the end of February, demands that South Africa’s elephants must depend on human social and economic development for their future survival.
While there is a nod to the spiritual and cultural significance of elephants to the people of South Africa, the central tenet of the draft strategy is that elephants, as a single species, are to be press-ganged into solving human political and administrative management issues that currently plague much of the natural landscape of South Africa.
Elephants to bear the burden of human poverty reduction
In other words, elephants are to be “utilised” to develop small businesses enterprises. This will include the use of live elephants – in the form of ecotourism, encounters with captive elephants, zoo experiences and live exports – as well as trade in their body parts and derivatives. The latter, according to the strategy, will include consumptive uses such as trophy hunting, trade in elephant hair, leather, ivory and meat. In short, elephants would have to be killed – and lots of them – if they are to meet the draft strategy’s goal of uplifting rural communities out of poverty.
That, of course, would be impossible to achieve since the country simply does not have that many elephants, but has hundreds of thousands of poor rural South Africans. According to SANParks, South Africa has about 44,000 elephants within the country’s boundaries, 30,000 of which are in the Kruger Park. It does not seem conceivable that hundreds of thousands of impoverished rural South Africans will have any hope of benefiting economically from a few thousand dead elephants. And, if not all community members, then who exactly will benefit and how will they be selected?
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Speaking about elephant conservation as an asset or as a burden for local communities ignores the imbalances created by the expansion of industrial development and population growth. Community-level participation is often essential to the success of conservation. However, attempts to promote community-based conservation and the local economic value of conservation are constrained by the same utilitarian narrative that drives these larger forces of industrial development. Elephants are still contingent on the contribution they make to human welfare, and that brings a plethora of risks.
The South African Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) claimsthat income generated by consumptive use practices is critical for marginalised and impoverished rural communities. However, there is no evidence of this. In South Africa, almost all of these practices take place on private reserves, which means there are few proceeds, if any, paid to local communities. The top-down approach ensures that the intended recipients receive a minuscule amount, if any, of the capital generated.
The mention of an ivory market is illogical. The international trade in ivory is banned, with most of the major ivory markets in China, the US and the European Union being closed for years now. There is no viable domestic market for ivory currently within South Africa. It is therefore impossible that ivory would make any contribution at all to economic development. Elephant leather, hair and meat are likewise not in high demand, and also unlikely to be so in the future.
The draft strategy mentions trophy hunting, but does not mention addressing the inequalities in the hunting industry. This is very similar to the National Biodiversity Strategy, which is also fraught with unrealistic and impossible-to-achieve goals.
Consumptive use of elephants is problematic in that it favours short-term economic revenue over long-term ecological sustainability, which pays for itself either in terms of ecotourism revenue or ecosystem services (such as functional landscapes operating as invaluable carbon sinks).
Human-elephant conflict issues are not quantified or explained. It seems to be included in the draft strategy as an excuse to kill more elephants rather than foster harmonious coexistence between elephants and humans.
Wellbeing of elephants not considered
Furthermore, the strategy does nothing to consider the wellbeing of elephants, only humans. Elephants are high-order mammals with complex ethology and social dynamics. Although the draft strategy recognises that elephants are sentient, many of the actions and values articulated in the draft strategy are in stark contrast to this fact. The strategy erroneously only sees the human-centred value of elephants even though the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act includes the clause of wellbeing of wild animals.
The draft strategy is indifferent to elephant complexity and suffering and blind to considerations of interspecies justice. Elephants are sentient beings who live socially complex lives through relationships which radiate out from a mother-offspring bond through families, clans and subpopulations. Independent males form long-term friendships. Elephants communicate through more than 300 gestures, complex speech and glandular secretions. They contemplate, negotiate, collaborate, plan and are aware of death. In short, they care about their lives.
Vague statements
Furthermore, the document is full of vague and sweeping subjective statements such as elephants will “enable engagement” and create “social cohesion”, but it does not explain what that means, let alone how this is supposed to be actioned. It also mentions nebulous notions such as implementing “African solutions for Africans”, again without qualifying the meaning of the statement and how this translates into real action. Other terms thrown in without any explanation as to how they relate to elephants are “carbon credits” and “tax beneficiation”.
This means that this draft strategy is basically a pie in the sky. It does not and cannot function in practical terms.
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Ultimately, the draft strategy is skewed in favour of anthropocentric benefits – economic, spiritual and cultural. It is not balanced because it views elephants and nature as a warehouse for human use and erroneously foregrounds social and cultural interpretations of interactions between elephants and people. It is silent on the abuse, domination and violence inflicted by hunters, traders, poachers and the captive industry.
What is required in the Draft National Elephant Strategy is a combined approach that integrates care for the land, for species and for individuals. This is best suited for ethical framing of the elephant issue that considers the individual elephant, in a group, as a population and within the natural landscape. DM
original source: 2025-03-19-pie-in-the-sky-why-sas-draft-elephant-heritage-strategy
