Case Study Assignment Write a case study on a policy issue that is pertinent to the general topic. For this assignment, research a case of your choice determined through consultation with your tutor.

Running head: protecting and conserving elephants

Case Study

Protecting and Conserving Elephants

August 14, 2020

Introduction

From the animal kingdom, elephants are considered the most significant global representatives. They are considered the higher-ordered mammals with complicated social and ethology dynamics, impending abundance in cultural settings and natural landscapes in different locations. Elephants can be beautiful and terrible, depending on human interaction with them. Many anthropologists, political ecologists, and geographers have signified the cultural and social roles of elephants. They are also represented as the religious symbols, as authentic loggers, source of desired ivory, and political insignia. Despite the human fascination with elephants’ charisma, in recent decades, the numbers of elephants have tended to decline rapidly due to the destruction of poaching and habitat (Goldenberg, Douglas-Hamilton, Daballen, &Wittemyer, 2016). CITES Secretariat has focused on this issue and estimated that 25,000 elephants had been rustled in Africa.

Laws and Techniques to Conserve Elephants

In the year 1978 ESA (Endangered Species Act) of the USA listed African elephants as threatened. However, for a decade, the people did not pay significant attention to this particular problem, and it took a decade for the policymakers to design the African Elephant Conservation Act (Drayman-Weisser, & Hornbeck, 2018). This Act was passed in the year 1988 by US congress. The US Congress also took a severe step in establishing the African Elephant Conservation Fund. Congress is providing millions of dollars to this organization so they can use the money to protect elephants. However, it can be said that it took congress much time to take these steps as, during the decade, almost 50% of species lost their life. Moreover, the Act caused a reduction in illegal ivory import and imposing criminal and civil penalties on culprits. According to this Act, the sport-hunting of the elephant is also restricted (Drayman-Weisser, & Hornbeck, 2018).

King, Lala, Nzumu, Mwambingu, & Douglas-Hamilton, (2017) claim that the Endangered Species Act did not provide certain protection to elephants because in between the 1980s to 1990s, about 300,000 elephants in Africa were killed due to ivory tusks. More than 75 percent due to raw ivory gathered through illegal poaching; various weapons used in ivory and political intentions are also involved in killing elephants; all of these factors have contributed to the scarcity of elephants at large.

The serious thought behind the establishment of this policy was to protect the elephants and overcome their endangering problem. The animal lovers and wildlife protection communities did not want to lose a precious animal. The funding was being used to raise awareness among people and create specific strategies to protect the elephants from danger. This policy has ulterior motives regarding elephants, but the primary focus is on preventing their carnage, providing protection to their territory, monitoring the numbers of the species, and the rates of their poaching. Some of the other components include ivory trafficking and reducing demand (King et al., 2017).

The animal activists have positive thoughts regarding these strategies and elephant conservation act because they believe that the role of elephants in the engineering of the ecosystem is vital, such as the maintenance of mineral-rich clearings in the tropical forest; an essential element for the survival of other species (Drayman-Weisser, T., & Hornbeck, 2018). They are also responsible for the survival of crucial soil nutrients spread at a continental level. The seed dispersion in various regions supports the growth and development of tree species, reducing carbon emissions and protecting the environment from all kinds of harms. The ecological benefits of elephants enhance their importance and encourage the people to protect them because their extinction can also make the survival of other species quite tricky. It can also be the reason for global warming and other environmental issues that can heighten due to trees' absence.

However, this specific policy is a severe reason to human-elephant conflict. For example, Human-elephant Conflict that is known as HEC, involving a human-elephant interaction that is not only complex but also difficult to manage (Henley, & Cook, 2019). The HEC directly influences both the species, i.e., the elephant and human; for instance, communities living near the habitat of elephants are in danger as elephants can attack them and even kill the humans. There are also problems like loss of income and property, significantly reducing the community tolerance for conserving the elephants. This interaction is also bad for elephants and undermines their interaction. This interaction's greatest threat can be described as antagonism, which upsurges local communities against animal protection. It is crucial for elephant conservation that this issue is entirely resolved or minimized to the extent that it is tolerable for the local communities. Various authorities such as WWF collaborate with various stakeholders, especially managers and wildlife communities, to resolve this issue among humans and elephants. However, they are failing because there is an absence of a problem analysis guide that can aid people in work through the complexities of HEC. Moreover, no specific information can guide humans regarding their interaction with elephants (FWS, 2019).

WWF is taking significant steps to reduce HEC by strategic management. They are using the latest tools and technologies, such as installing electric fencing and deterrents to keep the animals away from human communities so that the unfortunate encounters can be avoided. WWF is also taking steps to educate the communities, which can help change humans' behavioural change and reduce the negative impact. WWF has also developed specific teams that help humans when they have any complex interaction with animals (FWS, 2019). For instance, some of the time, due to the free movement of elephants, the human crops get destroyed. They become quite angry in such situations the teams help the people find alternative earning opportunities and cover financial loss. Moreover, to reduce this HEC impact for the long-term, WWF is working in collaboration with the government and other concerning stakeholders so the root causes can be sorted and resolved. The fundamental problems are fragmentation as well as habitat loss.

The authorities must resolve this conflict because, without that, it can be challenging to protect the elephant habitats, and humans will also keep on suffering. Which can generate negative sentiments among them and will never be willing to protect the specie.

Exclusionary Methods

Other than these Acts, some of the methods have also been adopted to protect and conserve elephants, such as protected zones and ecological strips, and electric fences.

Protected zones and Ecological Strips

The establishment of protected areas and their efforts of conserving wildlife involves conservationists and wildlife managers to make it possible to separate humans and wildlife (Henley & Cook, 2019). For this purpose, ecological corridors or strips have been discovered that fragmented habituated and isolated protected areas, provide the connection between people, propose them demographic liberation techniques, and inherited flow. These corridors also deal with ecological needs, such as helping people and elephants, avert human-elephant conflicts. In this technique, proper routes are provided for periodic relocation and supporting certain behaviours for water and resources. This technique is getting fame in Asia and Africa, developing measures, and expanding infrastructure in or around the ranges where there are elephants (Henley & Cook, 2019).

Electric Fences

Farmers have developed some of the physical restrictions, for example, fences full of electricity and channels, to avoid entering elephants into the countryside and habit areas. These physical barriers result in the negative impacts and influence long-term survival such as isolating and fragmenting elephants, unsettling their movement, reducing their food and water intake every season and obstructing inherited flow. Due to the negative impacts of the electric fencing technique, it is not appreciated in Asia. However, in many other areas of the world, this technique is followed to separate humans and wildlife (Markoulli, Lee, Byington, & Felps, 2017).

Conservation Critique

A debate is also generated that either protection of elephants is an ecological or environmental issue or just a social issue; however, this conflict has prevailed among critics (Kopnina, 2016). Some researchers have identified the contribution of elephants to the health of the environment in several ways and emphasized conservation efforts as necessary. The African elephants are the biggest herbivore across the world; they eat the right amount of plants per day; they contribute to transporting plant material around their guts and drop them off in mounds of dung. This way they help transport and drop off plant material thousands of meters away from where these plants are initially grown. It helps in growing these plants in the forests or other areas at large. The dung of elephants is also a better fertilizer as it is rich in nutrients that allow different types of seeds to sprout and grow (Shaffer, Khadka, Hoek, & Naithani, 2019).

The dung of elephants is an excellent source of food for several dung beetles. Other than eating it, dung beetles also bury it under the ground, where it becomes a source of food for other plants. The soil gets nutrients from this dung; therefore, it is observed that elephants play a significant role in the ecosystem as fertilizing and maintaining the population of plants. They help dig wells to access water underground by efficiently using their heavy feet, tusks, and trunk to make deep holes that are enough to tap and take out underground water. These holes help other animals for drinking water. Therefore, they help in the living process of other animals as well (McGrath, 2020). Due to their massive size, elephants also help in clearing the land by tramping vegetation. This clearing helps reach more light to the floor or land of forests and provides plants with a chance to proliferate. As different animals live on different kinds of plants; therefore, elephants contribute to promoting the biodiversity of different species. While walking along the vast area, elephants help to intersperse trees and plants that are much better and less destructive than burning trees. All these techniques have suggested that elephants are essential for the ecosystem (Kopnina, 2016).

However, critics only consider their preserving and conversing importance for the sake of wildlife. The rapid decrease of elephants is so alarming that they have now been declared as the endangered animal species that are evading from earth rapidly. Critics do not consider that elephants are contributing to the ecosystem or saving environment. This conflict is still debatable as many people focus on the poaching of elephants or the illegal process of ivory. Scarce studies have made that emphasis on the importance of elephants as the environment saviours. Therefore, the conflict between critics and favorers have remained side by side and sometimes have increased a bit globally (McGrath, 2020).

Conclusion

The current research on elephants' protection and conversion has concluded that elephants' extinction has to be taken and considered seriously as in several areas of Africa and Asia, elephants are enlisted as an endangered animal. Some of the critical issues have been raised by critically analyzing the issue, such as the main problem is killing and poaching elephants to get their ivory that is used for different purposes. Then, the worst social treatment with Zoo or circus elephants leads them towards death by getting continuous torture. Several Acts have been made that deal with all the issues. In several countries, the killing and poaching of elephants have been banned even the importing of elephants have also been restricted. Hefty fines are announced for those who are involved in this illegal activity. The elephants sent to the Zoo are now treated well. However, the human-elephant conflict has also been discussed as it increases with the growing human population and needs to expand agricultural land. These two significant needs create conflict and provide a limited area for elephants to live. Some of the essential methods have also suggested overcoming this issue. An essential part of this research is the conflict between critics and favorers for making this issue an environmental issue. Some of the critical areas have explored, such as elephants' role in planting and growing new food, digging holes for making well, and these will help in providing water to other animals. However, this study has focused on several important topics regarding the importance of elephants' protection and conservation.

References

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Goldenberg, S., de Silva, S., Rasmussen, H., Douglas-Hamilton, I., &Wittemyer, G. (2014). Controlling for behavioural state reveals social dynamics among male African elephants, Loxodonta africana. Animal Behaviour, 95, 111-119. doi: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2014.07.002

Goldenberg, S., Douglas-Hamilton, I., Daballen, D., &Wittemyer, G. (2016). Challenges of using behavior to monitor anthropogenic impacts on wildlife: a case study on illegal killing of African elephants. Animal Conservation, 20(3), 215-224. doi: 10.1111/acv.12309

Henley, M., & Cook, R. (2019). The management dilemma: Removing elephants to save large trees. Koedoe, 61(1). doi: 10.4102/koedoe.v61i1.1564

King, L. E., Lala, F., Nzumu, H., Mwambingu, E., & Douglas-Hamilton, I. (2017). Beehive fences as a multidimensional conflict-mitigation tool for farmers coexisting with elephants. Conservation Biology, 31(4), 743-752. doi:10.1111/cobi.12898

Kopnina, H. (2016). Wild Animals and Justice: The Case of the Dead Elephant in the Room. Journal Of International Wildlife Law & Policy, 19(3), 219-235. doi: 10.1080/13880292.2016.1204882

Markoulli, M. P., Lee, C. I., Byington, E., &Felps, W. A. (2017). Mapping Human Resource Management: Reviewing the field and charting future directions. Human Resource Management Review,27(3), 367-396. doi:10.1016/j.hrmr.2016.10.001

McGrath, M. (2020). Elephant protection to dominate CITES meeting. Retrieved August01,2020, from https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49372409\

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Schiffman, R. (2014). Political stability will save Africa's forest elephants. New Scientist, 221(2952), 25. doi: 10.1016/s0262-4079(14)60132-9

Shaffer, L. J., Khadka, K. K., Hoek, J. V., & Naithani, K. J. (2019). Human-Elephant Conflict: A Review of Current Management Strategies and Future Directions. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution,6. doi:10.3389/fevo.2018.00235

Wijaya, T. (2019, August 26). Sumatran elephant sanctuary under threat from bridge, port projects. Retrieved August 04, 2020, from https://news.mongabay.com/2019/08/sumatran-elephant-sanctuary-under-threat-from-bridge-port-projects/

FWS. (2019). Human-Elephant Conflict in Asia. Retrieved from fws.gov: https://www.fws.gov/international/pdf/Human-Elephant-Conflict-in-Asia-June2015.pdf