A few weeks ago, Big Life Foundation’s Predator Protector Program Coordinator Daniel Ole Sambu visited our partners at The Elephant Society in Hong Kong for a 4^th time to raise awareness, this time for lion conservation. The Lion Week included a gala fundraiser dinner, radio interviews, and a special screening of the George Adamson film “Born Free.” But Sambu spent most of his time visiting local schools and sharing stories about successful lion conservation efforts in East Africa, where he manages Big Life programs such as the Predator Compensation Fund.

The Maasai Olympics is another critical predator protection program that Big Life manages, an initiative that is culturally-based and helping to change the long Maasai history of killing lions for social recognition.

Explained Sambu to young listeners in Hong Kong, “If the Maasai are able to change parts of their culture for a good cause, like protecting lions, then maybe it’s also possible for the Chinese to change parts of their culture, and stop using lion bones and rhino horns for medicine.”

The local school children were inexplicably excited about the Maasai Olympics and the incredible warrior skills demonstrated. All of the excitement lead to an unbelievable idea: could we bring the Maasai Olympics to Hong Kong?! Could the Chinese compete against Maasai warriors in the high jump?!

And so, plans are underway to send some of the winners from the 2018 Maasai Olympics to Hong Kong, visas and logistics permitting. If all goes according to plan, we’ll be able to bring this idea into reality in November and of course will keep our supporters updated.

In the meantime, thank you for your support.

There is one less lion in Africa.

It’s a familiar story; two cow calves were separated from their herd during a day of grazing in the thick bush. A group of warriors went out to look for them, but the lions got there first. Enraged, the warriors took off after the lion tracks and killed one lioness with spears, as retribution for the loss of their cows.

This happened on Eselengei Group Ranch, where Big Life recently initiated our Predator Compensation Fund (PCF). The agreement was standard for the PCF program, with commitments from both the community and Big Life.

Big Life agrees to manage a program that will pay livestock owners a portion of their verified losses to predators. The community pays 30% of the compensation costs. There are penalties for non-performance, which includes bad livestock husbandry and the retaliatory killing of predators.

We are approaching one-year since the PCF agreement was completed, and this is the first lion that has been killed by a member of the Eselengei community in retaliation for livestock predation since then.

So, now what? It’s always a test. Communities will gladly accept compensation, but enforcing penalties is never as palatable.

The death of the lion sparked a series of meetings between all stakeholders to evaluate what happened and what should be done in response. After much discussion, the final decision adheres to and honors the PCF agreement. The community will pay a fine equivalent to 6 cows, and the community members living in the area where the lion was killed will not receive compensation payments for a two-month period.

Lions have been killed in the past, and will likely be killed again in future. The response following each death has an important impact on the chances of it happening again. In this case, the community will respect the agreement that governs Big Life’s livestock compensation payments. Aside from that lion still being alive today, we could not ask for more.

South Africa, Botswana, and Zimbabwe will NOT be allowed to legally sell their stockpiled ivory on the international market.

The highest level of international trade restrictions applied to the Zambian elephant population will NOT be relaxed.

And African countries will NOT be allowed to continue to wrench baby elephants from their families in the wild and send them into caged confinement in distant countries.

These are just three of the hugely positive outcomes on proposals that were considered this last week by CITES, and we would like to thank everyone who has done their bit in helping to achieve these successes. New agreements have also been reached on increased protections for a number of animals, including giraffes and some shark species, against the threats posed by international trade.

There was apparently intense debate at the conference as southern African countries pushed hard for permission to trade in elephants and elephant products, such as ivory, but thankfully, common sense prevailed.

Some countries continue to argue that due to their healthy elephant populations (for which we applaud them), they have a right to benefit financially from the value of their stockpiled ivory. But we know from experience that the last time that experiment was tried, what followed was one of the worst periods of elephant poaching in history, and it should not be repeated.

Having worked hard to virtually eliminate elephant poaching in the Greater Amboseli ecosystem, we are incredibly happy that the world has decided not to take any steps backwards.

Decisions made in the next ten days will determine the fate of the African Elephant. It sounds dramatic, and it is.

Currently, there is a group of people gathered in Geneva, representatives from countries across the globe, who hold great power. This gathering is the meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES CoP18), also known as the World Wildlife Conference.

But before we dissect the current conference, let’s wind back the clock, because history matters here. A century ago the African elephant population was estimated to be greater than 10 million, albeit already hugely reduced from the time when Europeans first arrived on the continent. Over the following decades the killing continued, and by 1979 the continental population was further reduced to an estimated 1.3 million.

CITES was established in 1973, becoming the global entity to control and regulate the international trade in elephant ivory that was driving much of the slaughter. For twenty years, from 1977 to 1989, the trade in ivory was allowed but regulated by CITES, yet the killing continued. As a result, in 1989 CITES moved the African elephant onto Appendix 1, affording the species the strictest CITES protection, resulting in the international ivory trade becoming illegal.

As the CITES protection took effect, some elephant populations started to recover. However, certain countries, including South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe continued to lobby for permits to sell ivory, arguing that the resulting income is necessary for supporting conservation efforts.

A ‘one-off’ sale of ivory was first allowed in 1999; 34 tons of stockpiled ivory sold by Namibia and Zimbabwe to Japan. Following this ‘success’ southern African countries continued to lobby for further sales, and against very strong advice from conservationists, a second larger sale was permitted in 2008. This involved a sale of approximately 107 tons to Japan AND China. Alarm bells rung worldwide.

What followed was a dramatic surge in poaching, as the ‘legitimized’ ivory trade led to an increase in demand for elephant ivory as well as a cover for poaching and illegal trafficking. An estimated 100,000 elephants were killed between 2010 and 2012 alone.

Since then, the world has come together to stop the poaching of elephants, to great effect. The work on demand-reduction in China, combined with China’s commitments to end the ivory trade, has resulted in an estimated 65% drop in the wholesale price of ivory in Chinese markets from 2014 to 2017. This reduced economic incentive, combined with greater investments in anti-poaching and elephant protection, has controlled poaching to some extent. Indicators tracking poaching rates in Africa suggest that poaching peaked in 2011 and declined until 2017 when it stabilized.

Despite the continued threat represented by poachers, African elephant populations are beginning to recover once again. But, because history tends to repeat itself, there is a group of countries that continue to pursue the permission to sell ivory, despite the evidence of the dramatic negative effects. This week, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe will once again be advocating for changes to the CITES laws, allowing them to trade raw ivory for commercial gain.

Despite the various experiments, it is now obvious that there is no way to effectively regulate the trade in ivory, such that the impact on living elephant populations is minimized. The ivory trade cannot work, and Big Life stands strongly with the Kenyan delegation that is working with other states to effectively propose a complete ban on all forms of ivory trade across the world.

These are enormous decisions that have the potential to shape the future of the African elephant. We hope that CITES acts in support of conservation this week, using its great power and responsibility to help ensure the survival of wildlife worldwide.