Terrorism and Ivory?

http://www.pri.org/stories/

Many people may wonder what type of people are poaching elephants and rhinos in Africa. I know that I was one of those people. Many people are shocked when they find out who are poaching these massive mammals.

According to The Washington times, which explains the process and goes into detail when describing these organizations that it turns out that these ivory tusks are fueling many major terrorist organizations. By hiring people to kill these animals for the ivory and then bringing it back for these people to sell on the black market is extremely profitable for terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda. Al Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabab in Somalia, Joseph Kony’s Lord's Resistance Army in central Africa, and Boko Haram in Nigeria are only some of the militants that are making money by trafficking the ivory from the elephants that were killed for their tusks. After they are done selling the ivory, they use the money in order to buy arms, ammunition, and also to fuel the salaries of the men that are working for the terrorist group. Unfortunately, Somali armed gangs have been poaching elephants in and around Kenya for many years, but al-Shabab has only recently started to exploit this situation.

If you are saying to yourself, how much money can this actually make for these terrorist organizations. Well, The investigation that has been ongoing for years now, by Mr. Crosta and Mr. Kalron estimates al-Shabab’s monthly ivory income to be $200,000 to $600,000. Almost all of the money ultimately makes it back into the terrorists weapon buying power. The Washington Times article, “Terrorists Slaughter African Elephants” explains that this operation is a very high reward/low risk operation to run for these organizations due to the lack of enforcement on the poaching laws. Mr. Crosta states that the group has become a very successful ivory trader: buying ivory from poachers and traffickers in Kenya and then reselling it immediately to intermediaries in Somalia and making a giant profit by doing so. It isn't too hard to understand how these groups are so successful when you take into account that the illegal wildlife trade is a $7 billion to $10 billion per business year, with the major consumers of this illicit yet lucrative slaughter business being located in Asia. In the article “Terrorists Slaughter African Elephants”, it states, “According to an 18-month investigation commissioned by the Elephant Action League in 2011, the al Qaeda affiliate Al-Shabaab generated between $200,000 and $600,000 a month from tusks. This vast sum of blood money accounted for about 40% of Al-Shabaab's total operating budget. These terrorist poachers not only kill African Animals, but are accused of murdering 60 Wildlife wardens in 2012 as well” (Poe). Some people wonder where these terrorists get their money in order to buy their weapons and fuel their workers salaries. In Al-Shabaab’s case almost have of their money comes from the elephant poaching business. Groups like Al-Qaeda and the Lord’s Resistance Army have very similar numbers as well.

For my next post I want to figure out which country has the largest issue with poaching and also what can be done to help fight it.