The Arts Against Poaching

Don’t tell Kirsten Everett young people should be seen and not heard.

The 17-year-old is the author of two e-books and has nearly 2,000 followers on Twitter. And when she’s not publishing her thoughts online, she’s wearing them on her sleeve. Literally. A picture of a rhino, its horns intact, emblazons the blue T-shirt she’s wearing. Everett is an ambassador for Rhino S.A, a youth-driven campaign to raise awareness about the slaughter of South Africa’s rhinos.

She fell in love with the endangered animal on a game drive with her family. As they waited for a mother rhino and her calf to move out of the road, their guide mentioned South Africa is losing its rhinos at an alarming rate because of poaching.

Everett says she felt compelled to speak out for the rhinos because they can not speak for themselves.

“We are the generation that will be blamed if we lose these beautiful species,” she says. “We are the generation that our grandchildren will stand up and ask, ‘What did you do?’”

An estimated 25,000 rhinos roam the continent, nearly 80 percent of them in South Africa. Their ivory tusks, a lucrative trade in Asia, are so coveted by poachers that conservationists warn the animals are on track to extinction.

Discovering this, Everett used her pen as a sword in the fight against poaching. She wrote two books, Eclipse Child and Escaping Extinction. The fictional stories, available on Kindle, follow the adventures of Bethany Clark, a young girl with superpowers, trying to save endangered rhinos from a world of “merciless greed.”

In many ways, Everett is like her fictional hero. She is, at least, as passionate.

“We have lost so many rhinos so far and we cannot afford to lose anymore or else we are not going to have any rhinos,” Everett says.

She shares this passion by writing and editing Rhino S.A.’s annual newsletter and by speaking at schools and institutions.

Everett says she believes strongly in educating young people so that by the time they take up leadership roles in society, they will have the knowledge and skills needed in any situation. But, she adds, they should not wait until they are adults to speak out against poaching – they should use drawing, poetry and painting to spread the message now.

Everett notes that poaching is intertwined with other factors like corruption and a lack of information. In an exchange with scouts from Hong Kong, she realized there is a disconnect between Africa, where the poaching happens, and Asia, where the wildlife trophies are sold.

“The people who use these products do not even know that for them to get it, an animal was brutally killed and its horns hacked off,” she says.

Realizing this, the young ambassador hopes to expand her activism to a global scale.

“I would like to see people from Rhino S.A. skyping or communicating with an entire community in Asia, with people that are able to embrace that,”Everett says. “That’s going to make a difference.”

Conservation through talent

By Maurice Oniango and Andrew Ochieng

One afternoon while browsing the Internet at a local cyber café in Ruvuma, Tanzania, Shubert Mwarabu saw an image that changed his life.

His friend had posted a photo of a dead elephant with its face hacked and tusks missing. Mwarabu could not comprehend what had happened to the animal, so he called his friend for an explanation. At the time, in 2011, “poaching” and “ivory” were foreign words to him.

Mwarabu discovered Tanzania had lost more than 60 percent of its elephants through poaching. Fifty years ago, as many as 300,000 elephants roamed the country. Today, an estimated 43,000 elephants are left.

Mwarabu was so distraught, he started Facebook and Twitter campaigns against the illegal slaughter of wildlife. He even loaned his voice to the movement, recording songs urging the public to join the fight.

“Let’s Fight Poaching,” or “Tupige Vita Ujangili” in KiSwahil, was his first release.

“The song tells that previously Tanzania was a country with a good conservation status, but nowadays is referred to as a hotspot for elephant poaching,” explains the 29 year-old singer and activist.

The lyrics also urge people to report poachers operating in their communities. Tanzania’s national radio station liked the message and pumped the song across the airwaves. His other songs, “Save Tanzania’s Elephants,” and “United for Wildlife,” tackle the relationship between poaching and terrorism. “Letter to CITES” sends a special message to the Convention on International Trade on Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) to ban the trade of ivory worldwide.

Mwarabu says he is saddened his efforts and those of fellow conservationists have been unrewarded because of corruption and system breakdowns. He says as an activist, he can only do advocacy and lobbying, but the key player in saving the elephants is the government.

“I can’t arrest a poacher. I can’t prosecute them. And I can’t change policy. This is a war in the hands of the government, and without political will, our elephants will be extinct,” says Mwarabu.

He says anti-poaching efforts need to be strengthened on both a large and small scale. He relays the time he tried using a number he says Tanzania’s Wildlife Agency gave the public to report suspected poachers. His calls went unanswered despite trying several times for four days. On the fifth day, Mwarabu says someone unrelated to the agency answered and asked why his number appeared so many times that week.

The activist says Tanzania’s judicial system seems as ineffective as that number.

He points to delays in the case of Yang Feng Glan, the 66 year-old suspected leader of a global poaching syndicate. Tanzanian authorities arrested Yang, better known as the “Queen of Ivory,” last October and charged her with smuggling 706 tusks worth approximately $2.5 million between 2000 and 2014.

“After the arrest and a few court appearances, we do not see any progress,” says Mwarabu. ”Can anyone say there is not enough evidence? If not, why was she the most wanted and hunted for years?”

Months after her arrest, Yang remains in jail awaiting trial. Her lawyer says she is innocent.

The case spurred Mwarabu to join other activists in signing an open letter to the new president, Dr. John Pombe Magufuli, urging him to address the drastic decline in Tanzania’s elephant population.

It asks the government to arrest and prosecute major ivory traders in Tanzania, regardless of nationality or status. The letter urges the president to use the country’s long-standing friendship with China to close Chinese ivory markets where up to 90 percent of Tanzania’s ivory is destined. It also demands the public destruction of Tanzania’s seized ivory stockpiles, the largest in the world.

Mwarabu is among major Tanzanian celebrities, scientists, academics and journalists who signed the open letter. They are hoping their high profile campaign to end poaching will become trendy, even with the president.