Spatial significance - Africa
This map shows the density of African elephants. The highest density of African elephants are distributed across eastern and southern Africa, with the highest densities occurring in Botswana, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Zambia and South Africa. These countries provide the perfect ecosystem for elephants; tropical and subtropical moist forests, flooded grasslands, Savannahs, and woodlands.
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This map of Africa shows how illegal ivory is able to travel across Africa and beyond it's borders to different countries where it is then sold and traded illegally.
The red stars and red dots represent an export hub or a major market. The red circles represent major exporting traffiking hubs. The blue arrows show a major trade route. This website is extreamly useful as it shows the route of fake ivory placed in Africa. http://www.nationalgeographic.com/tracking-ivory/map.html |
Countries in western and central Africa are facing an issue, not with elephants, but with gorillas.
Gorillas are being killed as a source of bushmeat, and being brought into urban areas where it is being sold to consumers. Gorilla meat is a prestigious meat that is meant for the wealthy and elite. It is very hard to catch poachers as gorillas are normally butchered and cut for their meat on the spot. The issue with gorillas is that they reproduce as slow rates, so that means that even if only small numbers are killed it still has detrimental impacts. Human development, loss of land, poaching and gorillas being caught in traps that are intended for other animals are the main causes of death. Although this issue is not with elephants it still co-relates because these precious being killed in their home countries for their parts to be exported to local and global markets. |
Patterns and trends
This trend shows that China has the most ivory seized of an Asian country. This is because China buys and sells more ivory than any other country in the world. They currently have a domestic markets and an illegal market. Since these markets still exist it encourages poaching and illegal trade which is why China has had the most ivory seized from 1989 to 2011.
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interrelationships
The graph to the left shows the proportional rate of political violence by event type in Africa between 1997 and 2015. This co-relates to elephants being killed for their ivory as many locals, poor villagers and unpaid park rangers are killing elephants for cash. Militas and terrorist groups are using iovry to fund their rebel groups. These groups are hiding inside national parks and in countries that have weak law enforcement. They are enslaving people, looting communities, and killing elephants for their ivory in order to fund their groups. As the rate of violence and number of rebel groups increases in Africa the African elephant becomes more and more threatened.
Geographic perspective
Environmental
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Economic
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Political
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Social
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