The practice of illegal ivory trade has spread across all of Africa.  Terrorist groups such as the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and Boko Haram scour the most vulnerable parts of the continent in search for elephants to kill for their tusks.  In return for the product, they may receive money, weapons, or medicine.  The desire for this commodity inspires these groups to do whatever they have to to get their hands on it.  Ivory trade is a difficult practice to stop because of how large the forests it occurs in are, the benefits that it has for the parties involved, and how difficult it is to track, but the effects of this illegal behavior should illicit a movement to put it to an end.  Illegal ivory trade is causing the population of elephants to severely decrease, it calls for the enslavement of vulnerable villagers by terrorist groups, and it funds these groups, allowing them to grow.

It is easy to imagine how illegal ivory trade can cause the population of elephants to decrease to a level of endangerment.  This practice is carried out by shooting or spearing elephants and then using a chainsaw to cut off the tusks.  Terrorist groups stop at nothing to obtain the tusks and to keep them in their possession during travel.  Surprisingly, national parks are a common place for these men to infiltrate to collect ivory.  Park rangers that are continually monitoring the area cannot cover enough ground to ensure the protection of all animals, and if they do come across these groups elephant poaching, they are often killed, as it is hard to defend themselves against a large group of men.  One of the most vulnerable places for elephants is the Congo River Basin.  It is located on the western side of Africa, where the countries around it do not have the means to provide enough protection (Gross).  The largest forested national park is located in the Basin, and has reported that they have less than 1,900 elephants left on their grounds (Gross).  The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), an international treaty that is supposed to protect wildlife and prevent things like illegal ivory trade, launched a program called Monitoring of the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE), which found at least 53 elephant poaching camps within the Basin (Gross).  MIKE members spent two years walking through remote parts of Africa to find these and realized that many are within reasonable proximity to main roads and parks (Gross).  Another national park, Garamba National Park located in central Africa, has reported that it has lost over ten percent of its elephant population (Kahumbu).  The effects have even stretched all the way to East Africa, where it is becoming an even bigger problem.  In June 2015, "the Tanzanian government announced that the country has lost 60 percent of its elephants in the past five years, down from 110,000 to fewer than 44,000," (Christy).  One of Tanzania's neighboring countries, Mozambique, has also reported a loss of 48 percent of the elephant population (Christy).  The one part of Africa that has successfully kept their elephants thriving is the southern tip of the continent, where they have the funding and resources to keep the animals protected (Gross).  While the majority of Africa wants all ivory trade to be banned to stop this mass slaughter of elephants, the south has a different idea.  They believe that since they have been able to save their elephants from this tragedy that they should be able to profit off of the ivory they collect legally from animals that have died from natural causes (Gross).  While this option would be viable if the rest of the continent was as successful as them, it is not going to help save the elephants in the other parts of Africa because that is already the system in place and thousands are still being killed every year.  

Another harsh effect of the illegal ivory trade is the enslavement of people that reside in villages near the elephant poaching camps that the terrorists run.  This issue is often overlooked because the most publicized part of the ivory trade deals with the conservation of elephants, but this act has taken a toll on the African people too.  To be as efficient as they can, these terror groups collect innocent people and put them to work to hunt for elephants.  If the people they capture try to fight back, escape, or refuse to slaughter these animals, they will face a similar fate to the unfortunate elephants that are caught (Christy).  Many of the victims taken are men.  This often leaves their wives and children unable to protect or provide for themselves because not only are the husbands taken, but the terrorists loot the whole village taking any supplies or food that they believe would be helpful to them.  Both Boko Haram and the LRA are guilty of this practice.  In one year Boko Haram took more than 200 people from their homes to help them kill about 23,000 elephants in one year (Elephant).  When it comes to the LRA, a surprising amount of children are abducted.  Although it seems more logical to have grown men carrying out the grueling work of cutting off elephant tusks and lugging them around, children and teens are often an easier target than men.  Joseph Kony, the leader of the LRA has become famous for the kidnapping of children and making them apart of his army.  Ernest Sugule, who is a minister in Africa and created a group that works to help victims from the LRA's frequent village invasions, says "'I've met more than a thousand children who have been abducted ... [w]hen they're abducted, they're very young, and they're forced to do horrible things,'" (Christy).  Acceptance of illegal ivory trade promotes this behavior.  Further proof that the kidnapping has a connection to elephant poaching comes from a little girl who was taken by the LRA and saved by Sugule's program.  She tells the minister that the victims the terrorist group took were taken to Garamba National Park where she watched one of the leaders, Tongo Tongo, shoot and kill multiple elephants in one day (Christy).  Elephant poaching and ivory trade has an obvious effect on elephants, but the people living around the areas where this takes place need to be considered also.  Africans are suffering from this practice in more ways than one.

The last main effect that illegal ivory trade has is terrorist funding.  Elephant tusks are very valuable to the people that use them to make products.  Depending on its size and color, one tusk can be worth up to $15,000 (Elephant).  Considering this large amount of money, and the even larger amount of elephants killed for this commodity, the amount of money the ivory trade is worth can get up into the billions.  Terrorists do not just want the money from these tusks though, many times they exchange them for weapons or medicine, which can sometimes be more powerful than money.  The weapons will be used for more elephant poaching, and as defense against park rangers or anyone that poses a threat against their terror organization (Elephant).  When asked by a Ugandan peace keeper why he wants to kill elephants rather than participate in peace talks, Kony responded, "'I want ivory for ammunition to keep fighting ... [i]t's only ivory that will make the LRA strong,'" (Christy).  Terrorist groups desire for ivory comes from the fact that they know it will allow them to keep their organization strong and able to conquer more people and land.  Ivory is very valuable and fairly easy to get considering what little protection elephants have in most areas of Africa.  There are some critics of the connection between illegal ivory trade and terrorist funding.  Christian Nelleman, the author of "The Environmental Crime Crisis," says, "'[t]he whole issue of terrorists getting income from poaching is vastly exaggerated,'" (McConnell).  He believes that this is just the story that is told because it creates an effective argument to get people to want to stop the ivory trade.  He thinks it is hard to not back up a cause that wants to stop the killing of innocent animals for the benefit of terrorist groups (McConnell).  Regardless of this idea, it is a fact that illegal ivory trade funds terrorist groups in one way or another and if it is not put to a stop it will only help these organizations to grow.

Illegal ivory trade effects a wide rage of things.  Not only are the elephants being slaughtered and led to extinction, the people in these dangerous areas are either killed or put to work.  The trade also funds the terrorist groups that are poaching the elephants, which perpetuates these effects.  Without intervention, more children will be abducted and more innocent animals will die as the terrorists who lead the practice grow stronger so that they are able to cause more damage.  Despite some critics of its vast effects, ivory trade is a serious issue that will continue to get worse if it is not stopped.

