Dear
friends,
African elephants have just over 10 years
left before they’re poached to extinction. 10 years!!!
We’re wiping them out. Just to trade in stupid
trinkets!
But right now we have
a chance to
shut down a major ivory market -- in
Europe. After experts found Europe's 'antique' trade is
driving the slaughter of elephants by giving cover for illegal
ivory, the EU launched a public consultation, asking for
proof. If they get it a total ban is possible.
So the
Avaaz team found a way to prove it.
Our community
is teaming up with Oxford University and top wildlife
investigators to source ivory across Europe, and then
radiocarbon test it to tell its age. This could
provide the
sure-fire evidence to get the ban we need! The
consultation ends in weeks. If 50,000 of us donate now, we can
get started today. Chip in what you can --
let's make sure
this is not the elephants’ last decade.
Poachers
are killing 100 elephants a day -- shooting them from
helicopters, or hacking their faces off while they’re still
alive. It’s unbearably cruel. And the worst is the elephants
understand what’s happening to them. They spend hours crying
over dead family members.
The only way to save them is
a global ban on this bloody business -- and
momentum has
never been so strong. The US and China passed ivory bans.
Hong Kong looks set to phase-out trade by 2021. And the EU
just suspended exports of raw tusks. Now, they’re considering
further restrictions.
Our evidence could be the
trump card! But it won’t be cheap. Avaaz may be
the only crowdsourced funding model in the world able to raise
enough, fast enough to get a
massive, grassroots-supported,
scientific study ready to lobby the EU just as it is
considering a ban.
This is ground-breaking work
-- and the EU is asking for it right now, but no one else is
ready to hit go on a project this ambitious. Chip in what you
can:
Once
there were 25 million elephants roaming Africa. Now we could
wipe out the entire species in a decade! It's a terrible sign
of how disconnected we are. Let's turn this around, and bring
elephants back from the brink.
With hope,
Alice,
Danny, Oli, Spyro, Marigona, Allison and the whole Avaaz team.
More information:
In Fighting Illegal Ivory, EU
Lags Behind (National Geographic)
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/06/ivory-trafficking-european-union-china-hong-kong-elephants-poaching/
Elephants on the path to extinction - the facts (The
Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/12/elephants-on-the-path-to-extinction-the-facts/
Elephant poachers are hard at work in Africa, and
carbon dating proves it (LA Times)
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-elephant-ivory-poaching-20161107-story.html
100,000 Elephants Killed by Poachers in Just Three
Years, Landmark Analysis Finds (National Geographic)
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140818-elephants-africa-poaching-cites-census/