The Plight of African Elephants: A Study of the Economic Impact of Elephant Poaching and Ivory Trafficking on Tourism of Thirteen African Countries.

The number of animal species threatened with poaching and trafficking is a growing global crisis. Some species are facing extinction as their populations dwindle at an alarming rate. The African Elephant (savannah and forest) population has declined precipitously in the last 40 years.  For example, 100,000 elephants were poached between 2010 and 2012 (Scriber, 2014). The United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), an international body with a treaty between governments, has urged member countries to control their domestic markets in order to stem illegal trafficking of ivory on the international market. The rate of poaching has surged in the past decade, fueled by the demand for ivory in fast-growing markets such as China. The United States is the second largest market based on the number of ivory items for sale. Although laws have become progressively more restrictive, much illegal smuggling of ivory continues. On July 6, 2016, a near-total ban of African ivory importation for commercial purposes was enacted in the United States and China announced this year that it will stop commercial ivory trade by December 2017. In Africa, elephants are not just valuable for their ivory tusks (ivory profits benefitting very few local people), but are a driver for the tourism industry, adding an important source of revenue for local and national economies. My project involves studying how illegal elephant poaching has impacted the tourism industry in thirteen African countries. Utilizing data from The World Bank, The World Development Indicators, and The Great Elephant Census I found a negative correlation between the numbers of killed elephants and tourist visits to these thirteen countries. I also noted that an increase in international airports is highly positively correlated with tourist visitation. Although this relationship exists, we cannot confidently determine that this is due to the demand to see elephants, or for business travel in general, using my sparse data. Some countries are in the midst of political unrest, impacting tourism, travel, and conservation efforts. Countries with elephants have an incentive to protect them, whether that is by their own increased surveillance of poaching activities or from monetary incentives from international sources to do so. It is urgent to do so because elephant populations are unsustainable with the current rate of killing.