Why "draw the line" at all?
why not work with the locals the way wildlife organisations do now to try to solve the issues in a many beneficial to both sides? for example this women who was working with WWF I believe was saying one solution they came up with for stopping elephants from coming into the villages was to recognise that they were after water and get the village to put its wells OUTSIDE the village and the problem went away. There were other solutions for some of the other issues but the point is if you look at the issues in a problem solving manner most can be solved, if you look at them as a "law and order" or "good vs bad" one then nothing will change. The villages have as much right to be there as the elephants do
Agreed......
But it doesn't solve the poaching issue....
In 2012, a shocking 30,000 elephants in Africa were slaughtered for their ivory, 7.4 percent of the entire population. Rhinos are in an even more precarious situation. Last year in South Africa, the last bastion for these species, 668 rhino were killed for their horns. This year, as of July 31, 536 rhino have been poached in South Africa. This is out of a global population of fewer than 30,000 rhinos, compared to 500,000 in Africa and Asia at the start of the 20th century.
For countries like Tanzania, Kenya, and South Africa, home to these charismatic species, their existence fuels an ecotourism industry that generates millions of jobs and billions of dollars in foreign exchange. Wipe out these animals, and the tourists who come to see them will vanish. Jobs and futures will follow suit and many people will be tossed into a life of grinding poverty.
And with regards to the poachers driven to it by their circumstances, the following should be noted.......
NAIROBI, Kenya, July 19, 2013 (ENS) – Two Kenya Wildlife Service officers were killed in two separate gunfights with suspected poachers Thursday while responding to a poaching incident within the Kipini Wildlife and Botanical Conservancy in Tana River County.
The two who lost their lives in these confrontations are the unit commanding officer and a ranger belonging to an anti-poaching unit in the area. The rest of the rangers escaped unhurt.
A poacher was also killed in one of the incidents.
http://ens-newswire.com/2013/07/19/poachers-kill-two-kenya-wildlife-service-officers/
Sad, very sad........
An AK47 rifle, three rifle magazines and 208 rounds of ammunition were recovered.