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The killers were professionals. The prey--a herd of 10 elephants--had huddled together in a group, the giant animals' instinctive defense against predators. Each fell in turn, killed instantly by a single high-velocity bullet to the brain. Game scouts came upon the heap of warm carcasses the next morning, during a patrol in the dense bush of Zimbabwe's Zambezi Valley. The tusks of eight elephants had been hacked out; the poachers apparently fled before finishing the work. The scouts were disgusted, but no longer surprised. "Poaching is going on all over the place--it's almost like an armed insurrection," said one local hunter. "We've not seen anything like this in our area before."
Elephant poaching, largely checked a decade ago after an emotional worldwide campaign to ban ivory sales, is on the rise again in Africa. And once again the issue has polarized the region. Advocates of a total ban say the problem stems from a decision three years ago to permit three elephant-rich southern African countries to sell ivory collected legally during herd management. They say that the sale last April of 59 tons of tusks stockpiled by Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe has reinvigorated smuggling networks. The southern African countries, which want to expand sales, suspect they're the object of a PR offensive by advocacy groups based in Europe and the United States. The two camps will collide in April, at a meeting in Kenya of the United Nations' Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species to decide on whether to renew the total ban.
The fight may focus on Zimbabwe. A new census conducted last month found elephant carcasses strewn the length of the Zambezi Valley, the country's best-known wildlife preserve. The Worldwide Fund for Nature study, leaked last week to a U.S. reporter, estimated that poachers have killed at least 350 elephants in the last year, a twofold increase. Zimbabwe's wildlife authorities, who had reported 81 elephants killed, didn't respond to faxed messages about the report. But one official earlier suggested Western groups were paying poachers in order to further calls for a new ban on ivory sales. "We suspect that someone is paying a very big mischief with our country," said Deputy Environment Minister Daniel Chininga-Chindori.
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A better explanation is corruption within a troubled country. Half of Zimbabwe's ready troops have been in the Democratic Republic of Congo for a year propping up the beleaguered government of Laurent Kabila. President Robert Mugabe has reportedly attempted to finance this adventure off the books, by accepting veiled partnerships in Congolese mineral deals through intermediaries. Mugabe has conceded receiving such aid, without giving details. According to South African investigators, one of the main intermediaries has been Billy Rautenbach, the 40-year-old heir to a multinational empire begun by his father, who founded a transport company in partnership with Mugabe's Zanu-PF party. South African police, who seized three truckloads of financial documents from Rautenbach's Johannesburg mansion last month, suspect he has been permitted to use hunting and fishing concessions along the Zambezi as a cover for ivory dealing. Rautenback couldn't be reached for comment.
Once demand for ivory rose, the smuggling epidemic may have been inevitable. For murky reasons, the black-market price of ivory quadrupled in the past six months. The region already was rife with smuggling: gold, diamonds and cobalt finance rebels and governments alike. Noteworthy busts are on the rise. Kenyan police caught a North Korean diplomat on his way home with 700 kilos of tusks and Chinese customs agents intercepted nearly two tons shipped from South Africa.
In the Zambezi Valley, the riverside safari camps close and even the hunters move out by December, when the rains begin and the heat, often over 40 degrees Celsius, sets in. There are no roads in most of the vast territory, only elephant tracks. The few poorly equipped game scouts can't cover the whole area. In the wilderness, the elephants are on their own.
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