Saving the Elephants

March 16, 2007 — -- Michael Fay grew up very far away from the wilds of Africa, in the relative safety of the New York suburbs. But he has become a passionate advocate of nature -- one who knows intimately the wilderness he strives to protect.

"Why am I a conservationist?" he asks in a soft voice. "I don't know. Something happened."

Fay, with backing from the National Geographic Society and the Wildlife Conservation Society back in the U.S., now spends much of his time in the African bush.

He has crisscrossed the continent by air, documenting its changes. He became a hero to many fellow advocates by crossing Africa on foot to highlight the need for wilderness. There are entire nature reserves that exist largely because he pushed for their creation.

Saving Zakouma

Now he has taken up the cause of the elephants of Zakouma, a remote region of southern Chad. Zakouma is now a wildlife refuge, and the elephants are safe there -- largely, says Fay, because the guards have tacit permission to shoot poachers.

In the March issue of National Geographic, Fay writes, "Officially, guards are allowed to defend themselves if poachers shoot. Unofficially, it is shoot-to-kill on both sides, so better to be the first to pull the trigger. In the past eight years, six guards have been killed by poachers, and at least six poachers by guards."

This blood feud has paid off for the animals. Within the rough-hewn boundaries of the refuge, their numbers have stopped plummeting.

But in the rainy season, when the elephants have to venture farther for food, it is all too common to find one slaughtered for its ivory tusks.

Slaughter, Sometimes for a Pack of Cigarettes

"It really doesn't have much to do with poverty, it has more to do with greed," said Fay. Many poachers -- subsistence farmers or bush people -- believe that ivory on the world market can help them escape from poverty.

"An armed gang of poachers that kill 10, 20, 30 elephants are going to make a lot of money from that ivory on the international market," said Stephen Blake of the Wildlife Conservation Society.

But Fay says the poachers usually lose out to middlemen. "They may get $50 for a tusk. Or they may get a pack of cigarettes."

This week, Fay testified to a subcommittee of Congress, urging the U.S. to keep up its commitment to conservation. Today, the U.S. government spends $150 million on conservation worldwide, but there have been proposals to cut the number in half.

"Helping Africans manage their natural resources underlies almost every other problem on the continent," he said in his testimony.

Sensing Danger

Fay says the elephants seem to know about danger. Except when food shortages send them foraging, they tend to stay in the Zakouma refuge, even though it has no fences.

"These elephants know exactly where they are -- they know every tree, they know where every camp is, and they're trying to weave their way through humanity," Fay said in an interview with ABC News.

But they often fail, largely because the world market for illegal ivory is tremendous, and growing. There was a treaty in 1989, known as CITES, that conservationists say has been very effective -- but it has also driven the price of ivory higher and higher.

As a result, the herds in central Africa are dwindling. Fay's airborne surveys of the area, he says, show fewer than 10,000 elephants, down from an estimated 100,000 in the 1970s.

"Where's it going to stop?" he asks.