Ivory sales must stop or Africa's elephants could soon be extinct, says Jane Goodall

[xchrom]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/dec/16/jane-goodall-ivory-poaching-elephant?intcmp=122


Elephants in the Masai Maara reserve in Kenya. Photograph: Anup Shah/ Anup Shah/Corbis

Jane Goodall, one of the world's greatest conservationists, has made an impassioned plea for a worldwide ban on the sale of ivory to prevent the extinction of the African elephant.

Her call follows the seizure in Malaysia last week of 24 tonnes of illegal ivory and a report by conservationists warning that the illegal ivory trade now threatens governments as rebel groups use the sale of tusks to fund their wars.

"A massive tragedy is unfolding in some parts of Africa. This is desperately serious, unprecedented," she said. "We believe that Tanzania has lost half its elephants in the last three years. Ugandan military planes have been seen over the Democratic Republic of the Congo shooting elephants from the air. Armed militia are now shooting the elephants."

She accused China of being ultimately responsible, because most of the ivory is sent there to be made into ornaments. "The main market is China and the east. The ivory appears to be smuggled out in the Chinese diplomatic pouches or in unmarked planes, or it is smuggled over the border to DR Congo. Armed gangs and rangers are joining in the smuggling or are getting killed. I fear we are losing the battle in some countries. It's shocking," she said.

[Jamastiene]

1. Animals don't stand a chance.

Ivory can be synthesized and the animals can live. Why people INSIST on actual ivory taken from an animal killed for that purpose and that purpose only is beyond me. I just cannot wrap my head around it. FFS, are we as a species incapable of creating a synthetic version of ivory? Or are we incapable of realizing it would be for the best to quit killing everything in sight and quit being so rigid in what we want to make things pretty?

K&R

[stuntcat]

2. I bet they'll go extinct in my lifetime.

I may be here until 2050. I'll see lots of strong beautiful species wiped out.
This is what really does make me sad that I was born, the mass extinction my species will cause.
Well I'm sure all the babies I'm surrounded by in suburbia will have much harder hearts than I do.

[pscot]

3. They'll never realize what they've lost

Just as young people today have no clue as to how rich life was even 40 or 50 years ago. Aging is about loss under the best of circumstances, but the losses we're experiencing now are different; more complete, more compelling and far sadder.

[Hydra]

4. Yup

I never knew the era before Reagan. I'm told there were possibilities and hopes.

I wouldn't know- I was raised during the race to the bottom. Middle class? I've seen the ones who retired. I know a few here and there in my generation, but most of us are just scraping through.

Still, this is life- the myth for awhile was that it was about things getting better. It's really about what can survive and what can't...and we sure don't help with that.