Poaching threatens elephants in DRC

Elephant meat can be bought at markets in the Central African Republic

KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo -- Elephants are under threat in the northern Democratic Republic of Congo as demand for their meat grows in the Central African Republic, a conservationist says.

In the CAR, poachers have wiped out virtually all wild game, prompting an increase in the slaughter of elephants in the unique habitat on the edge of the Congo basin where rainforest blends into open savannah.

It is a home for a combination of forest and savannah wildlife, possibly including a type of large chimpanzee still unknown to science.

If poaching continues and elephants are soon eliminated, the next targets would be other large animal species like bongos and chimpanzees until all the wildlife there is also destroyed, leaving local people in an impoverished environment without important food resources.

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In a campaign to save wildlife in this remote region, Swiss photographer Karl Ammann is working with village chiefs, rebel military commanders and conservationists, trying to develop ways to stop the poaching.

One of his ambitious projects is to develop a special market for "elephant-friendly" coffee grown by local villagers.

Thousands of coffee growers in the region have lost their only source of income, due to civil war and economic collapse.

Ammann is enlisting European coffee importers to offer special high prices to local growers on the condition that their communities refuse to co-operate with poaching gangs and report them to the authorities.

By protecting elephants, villagers will once again be able to sell their coffee and their communities could be revitalised.

It is a far-fetched gamble, and Ammann and his partners get little support from established conservation organisations, but their efforts could be the best hope for protecting elephants and other endangered wildlife in a rich forest habitat that is all but forgotten by the outside world.

Ammann says he has video evidence shot in markets in Bangui, the capital of Central African Republic, where "bushmeat" -- meat from wild animals like antelopes and monkeys -- is on sale.

In almost every major market, it is easy to find elephant meat as well.

"Since the war, since three or four years, there's been very heavy commercial hunting for the elephant, to sell the meat into CAR, and as such the elephants have taken a beating," Ammann said.

Local sources say elephant meat has become the main export from this poverty-stricken area.

"The only way they can earn some money, the only commodity they can export at the moment from that whole region is really bushmeat, and at the moment the elephant is the most profitable piece of bushmeat -- it brings about $250 per elephant," Ammann said.

Two hundred and fifty dollars is far more than the average Congolese can earn in a year.

Although both countries gave legal protection to elephants years ago, Ammann claims that they not only fail to enforce the law, they actually profit from the illegal trade, taking bribes from dealers and charging taxes on imported bushmeat.

"There's two to three elephants crossing the border in smoked form every day, meaning about a thousand elephants a year, and that's totally unsustainable. Two or three years more and that will be the end," Ammann said.

Under these conditions there seems little hope for saving elephants here. No one knows how many still survive but in a few years they could all be gone.