This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Community Corner

ELEPHANTS EXTINCT IN 10 YEARS! International March for Elephants- Save The Elephants & STOP IVORY Trade & Sales!

DEMAND GOVERNMENTS OF ALL NATION'S STOP THE TRADE OF IVORY

*13,000 People have been KILLED IN DUTY the last 8 Years protecting Wild Life 

*Protecting these animals is NOT A SENTIMENTAL WISH but an ECONOMIC, SOCIAL, AND ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE

*As of 2012, the last three years have seen the greatest volume of Ivory Seizures in a quarter of a century

*Scientific Data PROVES, THAT CURRENT LEVELS OF POACHING ARE UNSUSTAINABLE 

*97% of Rhinos have killed for their HORNS - the remaining Rhino have been Captured and placed in Protective Custody thru Rhino Trans location
*Evidence has shown that Terrorist Organizations in countries like Somalia use illegal Ivory to Fund Operations
*70% Percent of the people in China, the World's largest Ivory Consumer, believe that Elephant Tusks fallout with no harm being done to the Animals

 ----QUOTE : National Geographic----October 4, 2013
"Lose the elephant and you lose a firmament in the imagination of childhood. Lose the elephant and an entire foundation in the moral standing of civilization crumbles. All our human constructs and artifacts would pale before the loss of these titans. With the last elephants still marching on African soil, we may still have reason to walk toward the absolute horizon. The march this October is not only to salvage the elephant, but to salvage what is left of humanity’s humanity. It is a march for sanity. Without the elephants, we become ontological cripples for the rest of our earthly stay. The elephant’s future is our fate and responsibility. Without elephants we won’t have a leg to stand on. Civilization will stand or fall on the back of the African elephant."

-----NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC----
Increased vigilance and anti-poaching units are now responding, but something intangible must also occur in the hearts of those who buy ivory. With a critical mass of conscience on the upsurge, the upcoming march is a plea for sanity, a prayer for continuity, for I believe that when the tide is reversed and the ivory trade is finally eradicated, we will have landed on a new planet and humanity will have taken a step back from its own oblivion. If we do not reverse course, the loss of the elephant will have played a critical role in the fall of the human empire. There will be no turning back.
***There are the realities of climate change too titanic to ignore, but the willful eradication of a part of our psyche that sits enthroned like a monument in the mind and soul of humanity cannot be ignored. It was Romain Gary who understood that the elephants were the last individuals. In his masterpiece The Roots of Heaven, he imagined prisoners in concentration camps closing their eyes and thinking of the elephants marching freely in the last open spaces of the world. He imagined them tearing down the barbed wire fences, reinforced concrete, and abject materialism of the camps and stepping over the SS soldiers. For make no mistake, if we were to lose the elephants, the ramifications would be a penal colony on our planet, not just for humanity but for the entire life force. It is why Elie Wiesel told us that to save the elephant “is an urgent moral imperative.” The March for the Elephants is also a march for the sea and the rainforests and the frogs and the lions and tigers and bears. It is a march for what makes life ineffable. This was summarized by a ranger in Tsavo who worked for the orphaned elephants Dame Daphne has worked so tirelessly to rehabilitate. He had lost his grandfather to an elephant years ago and yet was not vindictive. He realized it was an accident and that elephants are losing ancient ancestral migration paths and habitat. In his wonderfully stark, elegant face and camouflage fatigues he turned to us and said, “A world without elephants is like a world without oxygen.”

The upcoming march is a march for sanity. As one Samburu elder once told us, without the elephants and the whales and the other beings of earth, we will lose our minds. If much stiffer penalties, greatly increased jail time and fines for poachers are not enough to reverse course, then consider the curse many tribal people believe is cast on those who kill elephants. They say it is not just another animal, but they are the mind of nature. What we are beholden to is our place on earth before the cybernetic stare overwhelms the biology and life support system of the planet. As some of the largest consumers of ivory, the Chinese must do everything they can to marshal a transformation in the heart of their people for the rhino and elephant, for Chinese children, too, will want to know that these ineffable beings still exist 100 years from now and beyond. The realization that the panda is irreplaceable must now be extended to Africa’s megafauna. In doing so, China and Asia will save face and avoid enormous shame for the remainder of their history. Henry David Thoreau, in his prophetic voice, understood the slaughter of the whales for oil and also the killers of elephants for ivory. He imagined a greater race than ours making buttons and flageolets out of our bones The elephant is one of the greatest ballasts we have on terrestrial ground – ecologically, spiritually, morally and even karmically. Lose the elephant and we execute wonder, for as we learned in Africa, the word pil, elephant in Hebrew, is the root of the verb to wonder.
***“On an entirely manmade earth, there can be no room for man either,” wrote Romain Gary. “All that will be left of us are robots.”

Already there are stirrings of a realization in the Orient, stirrings in the minds and hearts, that elephants have to be killed to retrieve their tusks, that tusks do not fall out like milk teeth! How they do not realize the truth is one of the great mysteries of the human condition and illumines the great cultural gap between East and West. Perhaps they are willfully ignorant and choose to ignore the diabolical realities. But there is evidence that with the media campaigns and billboards through International Fund for Animal Welfare, WildAid and other agencies, the Chinese may be finally coming to grips with the grotesque idea that elephants have to have their faces sawed off to get at their teeth. Compared to just a year ago, many more are saying that they don’t want to buy ivory. Maybe the campaigns are starting to impact the great civilization of Lao Tze. The great dijjaga tusker in India who was out of control bowed before the stalwart heart and mind of the Buddha. It is a lesson we should learn before it is too late.

DEMAND GOVERNMENTS OF ALL NATION'S STOP THE TRADE OF IVORY

Support the DSWT's iworry campaign and be a part of a global effort to protect and preserve elephants.
http://www.iworry.org/

http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/

http://youtu.be/2RuPAlnEf98

Download the movie

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?