The End of the Elephants?

Now on BBC News, we take a look at the precarious future

of the African elephant.

Poachers are wiping out the elephants to feed

Asia's hunger for ivory.

As Kenya burns the biggest haul of tusks in history,

the BBC's Alastair Leithead joins the war on poaching in the Congo

and meets the hunters saving Namibia's elephants.

The film contains some graphic content that some viewers

might find upsetting.

30,000 to 40,000 elephants are being killed for their tasks every year,

and there are maybe only 400,000 left.

You can see its ivory tusks have been cut away.

The only way to protect them is to be better than the

opponents and the poachers.

We meet the man who killed the elephants.

TRANSLATION: I don't regret it.

I feel heroic, because they terrorise us.

They invade our farms.

And at the trafficking hub of Africa, we meet those

who transport their tusks.

They are very smart, intelligent people,

and they are well connected.

And as the killing continues, there is debate about how best

to save the elephants.

It is going to die in a few years anyway, why let it die of old age

if it can raise money for the community?

If the crisis isn't tackled, this could all be gone in a generation.

These men are on the front line of conservation in Africa.

They're trying to save the elephants in a place surrounded by civil war.

trying to stop heavily armed groups who will do anything

to get their hands on ivory.

You can see it's hard going, but this is the best time

time of year to come.

Normally, this grass is 3.5 metres high.

100 rangers, for 14,000 square kilometres of forest

land, scrub and marsh,

with streams to cross and tall savannah grasslands to navigate.

It's a game of cat and mouse for the poachers, who track

the animals and strike in places far from the nearest road.

Well, after going through this long grass, we came to a clearing

and found this.

You could smell the pungent smell of this elephant decomposing.

It was killed three weeks ago.

It was clearly killed by a poacher, because its face has been cut off

and the tusks have been removed.

And then just swinging around here, ten metres further up,

where the rangers are sitting, is another one.

Slightly smaller, same thing.

Over the time, it's obviously had vultures humming here.

Other animals, scavengers have come and picked away at it.

We did our best to follow their footprints, one of the rangers

told me, but they lost the trail and the poachers were long gone.

It's a tragically common sight in Garamba, one of the oldest

national parks in Africa, but now one of its most dangerous,

for the animals and for those trying to protect them.

The Northern Democratic Republic of Congo has been

unstable for many years.

South Sudan is in civil war.

The Central African Republic is struggling.

Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army is still a threat.

It's not a good neighbourhood for conservation.

But a group called African Parks is trying,

by taking over management.

This park has, to a large extent, been basically poached out

by numerous armed groups.

I think Garamba is probably today at the forefront of conservation

in terms of dangers.

I don't think there are many other places which have so many threats

to one park as we have here.

So it is really on the edge.

At the end of the '70s, there were over 22,000 elephants here.

Only eight years ago, there were at least 4,000 elephants.

I would put it at 200-400 elephants today.

So 90% of what there was has gone?

Exactly.

African Parks is putting its rangers through military training,

improving their fitness and skills.

They have barely 100 rangers, and a similar number of Congolese

troops assigned to the park.

They would like three times as many to protect

the park effectively.

Few hit the mark.

The weapons stick, the ammunition is old and the risks are

significant, because the poachers are much better armed and prepared.

TRANSLATION: They work like an army, with tactics

and good training.

They have better training and more experience than us.

They go out for nine-day patrols, trying to stop the poachers

before they strike.

It's a militarised form of conservation, funded mainly

by the European Union and private donors.

It doesn't pay for itself, as even the most adventurous

tourists won't take these risks.

While pursuing poachers, this ranger's patrol was ambushed

by 40 heavily armed men on horseback, probably from Sudan.

Four rangers were killed, one injured.

We need more people, he said, as there aren't

enough of us to do this job in such a huge park.

Also new equipment, better rations and more roads

for quicker deployments.

Some poachers are caught.

This man was arrested after a tip-off.

He and two others were found with ivory in their car.

The tusks are stored, the suspects questioned.

If local people benefit from the park through jobs

and the security it brings to the area, they are more likely

to value their presence and help them keep the wildlife.

But despite fewer elephants getting killed, the poaching

is still going on, right under the rangers' noses.

Word suddenly came that the park's pilot had seen circling

vultures, which led him to a gruesome discovery.

And there are the carcasses, down by the river.

Five of them, one a baby, and a sixth we have spotted

further up the river.

It is hard to make up from here, but you can see that their faces

have been cut off, the tusks have been taken.

It's a very different picture below the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro,

Africa's highest mountain.

The elephants here are thriving.

But some elephants are still being killed.

And the country remains at the heart of Africa's trafficking routes.

The ivory in this strongroom here in Nairobi represents the tusks

of thousands of elephants.

If this was to reach Asia, it would make ?60 million.

An illegal ivory trade worth billions traverses the globe.

Esmond Bradley-Martin has devoted much of his life

to following the money and tracking the trade.

Corruption is probably the single biggest cause of the increase

in elephant poaching, corruption at all levels.

Most ivory now is going out of Africa

through Dar es Salaam and Mombasa,

so there is corruption in those ports as well.

Then it has to be shipped over to Asia, mostly Vietnam and China,

and there is corruption there getting it through.

There is corruption all the way along the line, and it has

increased significantly.

We're close to the Tsavo National Parks in Kenya,

and we're heading off to meet three men who are involved in poaching

here, one of whom says he has a stash of ivory which he is trying

to sell at the moment to other men involved in the process of killing

the elephants and taking the ivory from them.

The poachers took us to a secluded spot and asked us

not to identify them.

They admitted killing elephants and selling the ivory to middlemen.

TRANSLATION: We choose an elephant by looking at the size

and killing the biggest one.

How easy is it to kill an elephant with a poisoned arrow?

The poison is very strong.

You have to find a soft place to shoot, below the ear.

One of the men, who called himself Master, sells the ivory on.

TRANSLATION: We don't sell directly to the Chinese,

but we go through local brokers who rip us off.

We get maybe ?35 a kilogram, but they sell it for a lot more.

Although Kenya has reduced poaching, Master says it is not easy to stop.

The authorities collude with us.

We collude with them, and once we sell the tusks,

we give them the money.

Bribery and corruption is at the essence of how

you are able to do what you do.

Yeah, bribery and corruption makes it easier, as the salaries

they are paid is not enough.

Do you regret the fact that you are killing these animals

that are endangered?

I don't regret it.

I feel heroic, because they terrorise us.

They invade our farms, and we don't get any

compensation, so you end up with no food and no money.

This is small scale.

Most of the ivory being recovered in Kenya is in transit.

It's on its way from places like Garamba or Tanzania

to the port of Mombasa.

It's there we found a shipping agent, who agreed to speak to us

about the illegal trade.

He admitted helping to smuggle tusks concealed in containers.

Someone comes and tells you, we have goods.

This is a special consignment.

It has to pass through without being checked.

So we talk to the guys at the port and they let it go through.

And how much would he have to pay?

$10,000 is the minimum, because it's not just one person

who gets the money.

There are security guys, officials, even in my company,

there are guys who have to be given something.

But you never know who is behind it.

If it's not the Somalis, it's the Arabs or the Chinese.

It's a cartel.

They are very smart, intelligent people,

and they are well connected.

The last big haul here was 2013.

Peter says that is only because security officials

were not bribed enough.

He says a huge shipment left at the end of last year.

The authorities are fighting back.

Kenya wildlife service is using ivory dogs

in the port and here

at Nairobi's Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

They are trained to sniff out even something the size of a bangle.

While most finds in suitcases are small, they recently recovered

over 64 kilos of tusks hidden in air freight.

Wherever the smoking gun lies, we will apprehend them.

Two weeks ago, based on a tip-off, we were able to apprehend people

in a government vehicle, administration police,

a couple of them armed and trying to sell some illegal ivory.

So we will go after whoever we need to.

There have been some arrests in Kenya and Tanzania,

many denials and few convictions.

Fines are often paid in lieu of jail time.

This woman has been called Tanzania's ivory queen.

She is on trial, but denies trading 700 tusks and leading

an organised crime ring.

The Kenya government is keen to send a strong message.

Every piece of ivory in its store has been carefully recorded,

and has been transported tusk by tusk to be destroyed in the biggest

in the biggest ivory burn in history.

The reason is to essentially make a statement to the world

that we are, number one, committed to conservation,

and to underline the fact that we don't believe

that there ought to be any value attributed to ivory and rhino horn,

except on elephants and rhinos.

The way to save the elephants and stop the slaughter

is to persuade people that buying ivory is no longer acceptable.

China has pledged to end its legal domestic ivory trade,

but despite a campaign to make people aware of the devastating

effect of poaching on elephants,

it's still the world's biggest consumer.

Elephants seem to always get hammered in modern history

time you have a rapid expansion of middle class.

Looking at Victorian England,

this is the time when colonial Britain imported more ivory

than any country in the world.

But it's also the time when you had the greatest expansion

of the middle class in the UK.

The same thing is happening in China today.

We are witnessing the most rapid expansion of middle class in China,

and people, to show status, to show wealth and prestige,

will invest in ivory in the same way that Victorian England did.

This is how they are sending a strong message in China,

crushing rather than burning the tusks.

There is a high-profile campaign against ivory.

So they eat grass over there,

and then they come to the river and play together.

This is one of China's biggest film stars,

with more than 40 million followers on Chinese Twitter.

She's just one of the high-profile names on social media persuading

people to boycott ivory products.

People keep poaching them.

But perhaps more could be done.

China has to come to Africa

and station their own law enforcement investigators

to collaborate and work directly with Africans.

They can help the governments put together the cases

and try them here.

And there is another way of protecting the elephants,

by making sure they are worth more to the local community living

than they are to poachers dead.

Tourists come to Kenya for its wildlife, but often visit

villages in the Maasai Mara.

That raises money and gives people the chance to sell handmade local

crafts, but there is more to it.

Communities also lease out their land for private tourist

lodges or to create wildlife conservancies, places

where cattle grazing is reduced.

They get regular cash payments, and it makes people more likely

to chase poachers away.

Now the community are earning something from the conservancy.

So there is not higher poaching, not like the times when there

was a lot of poaching.

But living so close to wildlife brings its problems.

The population is increasing, as are the number of cattle.

Nearby national parks, there is often conflict

between humans and wildlife.

Crops are destroyed, and some people are killed.

This man explained how his ten-year-old grandson was tending

the cattle very close to the house when he was attacked by an elephant.

The boy was gorged and crushed to death.

200 villagers gathered with spears and went in pursuit, he said.

At least two elephants were killed and others badly injured.

A baby elephant was orphaned.

As the pressure for land increases, this conflict will only grow.

There are places in Africa

where elephant numbers are increasing.

One is Namibia.

The concept of conservancies, communities managing

the wildlife to generate income, started here.

This strip is a hangover from colonial days, giving

what was then German West Africa access to the great Zambezi River.

It's now a major transit route for elephants heading

heading to the stunning Okavango Delta in Botswana.

Few tourists bring their money here,

so they have a more controversial approach

to saving the elephants.

Hunting.

I've been out on game drives before where you go out in a vehicle

and look for animals, but it's weird going out knowing

that if we see a buffalo or even trails for a buffalo,

these guys are going to go out and shoot it.

This hunting expedition has paid handsomely for their licence.

Yesterday morning, it was travelling this way.

A lone bull.

They are searching for fresh footprints to pick up a trail.

For shooting a buffalo or an elephant, the community can

make more than $10,000.

People who are against hunting don't have all the facts.

We are hunting to take out the older animals.

It is going to die in a few years anyway.

Why let it die of old age if it can raise money for the community,

who benefit from it?

There's a quota.

Only a certain number of each animal can be killed each year,

and even then all the meat goes to the community,

and it has to be within the boundary of this conservancy.

People can get very emotional about hunting, whether it be

for buffalo or elephants or lions.

But the fact is that tourism in this area doesn't

bring in enough money, and hunting does.

When we see it, we have to record in the event book.

Some of it is spent employing community rangers.

Brutus is a poacher turned gamekeeper.

They go on daily patrols to record information about carcasses

and rare animal sightings.

Their data is used to set hunting quotas.

We spend this money mostly for development.

So far, we have managed to buy four transformers for four villages.

And we bought a tractor for us.

What would happen if hunting wasn't allowed here?

If hunting is not allowed,

from hunting stops also.

Stop, there's buffalo.

Check the other side.

Back on the hunt, they have seen a herd of perhaps 200 buffalo.

But these animals are outside the conservancy,

inside the national park, so can't be shot.

The hunters had to look elsewhere.

Tourism works in a number of places, but elephants exist

beyond scenic landscapes.

If we're going to demand that Africa keeps certain places

pristine for animals, either the world is going to have

to pay for it, or the resources, the living animals will have

to pay for it in some way.

In other words, elephants have to be worth more

to people alive than dead, and that doesn't just

mean sentimental value from Western tourists,

it means real money for real communities.

100 years ago, there were perhaps 10 million elephants in Africa.

With a combination of poaching,

population growth and climate change,

these giants could be confined to history.