African elephant poaching rates correlate with local poverty, national corruption and global ivory price

TY - JOUR

T1 - African elephant poaching rates correlate with local poverty, national corruption and global ivory price

AU - Hauenstein, Severin

AU - Kshatriya, Mrigesh

AU - Blanc, Julian

AU - Dormann, Carsten F.

AU - Beale, Colin Michael

N1 - © The Author(s) 2019

PY - 2019/5/28

Y1 - 2019/5/28

N2 - Poaching is contributing to rapid declines in elephant populations across Africa. Following high-profile changes in the political environment, the overall number of illegally killed elephants in Africa seems to be falling, but to evaluate potential conservation interventions we must understand the processes driving poaching rates at local and global scales. Here we show that annual poaching rates in 53 sites strongly correlate with proxies of ivory demand in the main Chinese markets, whereas between-country and between-site variation is strongly associated with indicators of corruption and poverty. Our analysis reveals a recent decline in annual poaching mortality rate from an estimated peak of over 10% in 2011 to <4% in 2017. Based on these findings, we suggest that continued investment in law enforcement could further reduce poaching, but is unlikely to succeed without action that simultaneously reduces ivory demand and tackles corruption and poverty.

AB - Poaching is contributing to rapid declines in elephant populations across Africa. Following high-profile changes in the political environment, the overall number of illegally killed elephants in Africa seems to be falling, but to evaluate potential conservation interventions we must understand the processes driving poaching rates at local and global scales. Here we show that annual poaching rates in 53 sites strongly correlate with proxies of ivory demand in the main Chinese markets, whereas between-country and between-site variation is strongly associated with indicators of corruption and poverty. Our analysis reveals a recent decline in annual poaching mortality rate from an estimated peak of over 10% in 2011 to <4% in 2017. Based on these findings, we suggest that continued investment in law enforcement could further reduce poaching, but is unlikely to succeed without action that simultaneously reduces ivory demand and tackles corruption and poverty.

KW - Africa

KW - Animals

KW - China

KW - Commerce

KW - Conservation of Natural Resources

KW - Crime/statistics & numerical data

KW - Elephants

KW - Humans

KW - Poverty/statistics & numerical data

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85066315563&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1038/s41467-019-09993-2

DO - 10.1038/s41467-019-09993-2

M3 - Article

C2 - 31138804

SN - 2041-1723

VL - 10

JO - Nature Communications

JF - Nature Communications

M1 - 2242

ER -