His is one of the most distinctive anti-poaching organisations in existence, so we asked founder Andrea Crosta what he thinks of those who take pleasure in killing animals — and for his view on the hunting trophy controversy in the United States.
Once upon a time there was a Swiss hunter who travelled to Mozambique every year. There, he would sit under his tent, patiently waiting for an antelope to appear. The moment one showed up, he would kill it. He would then sit and wait again until the carcass attracted a leopard, at which point he would shoot it. Then, once more, he would wait under the tent for the last trophy to arrive: a crocodile.
This story, which is unfortunately not a fairy tale with a happy ending, is the recollection of an investigation carried out two years ago by Andrea Crosta and his team at Elephant action league. "If a person goes so far as to build that kind of setup," sighs Crosta, referring to the Swiss hunter, "in my view he is not entirely normal. In fact, as the saying goes, 'he'd better go and see a professional.' These are individuals who think in ways so different from ours — almost pathological — that I never engage with them on an ethical level."
Crosta is co-founder and director of Elephant Action League (Eal), an organisation that has put intelligence at the service of nature with the aim of combating crimes against the environment and the illegal trafficking of animal parts, such as elephant tusks, tiger teeth, pangolin scales and rhino horns. His passion for conservation was born when he was a child; life then led him to work in the field of intelligence. He soon realised he was not satisfied with what he was doing and decided to use his experience to save animals. He has stressed on several occasions that the solution to poaching is not to kill poachers, but to succeed in arresting traffickers — and to do so requires investigations that Elephant Action League agents carry out undercover, infiltrating criminal networks and risking their own lives.
Read also: Andrea Crosta. The man who put his "intelligence" at the service of animals victimised by poaching
We decided to speak with Andrea Crosta following the storm triggered by United States president Donald Trump's intention to allow the importation of hunting trophies from Zambia and Zimbabwe — a decision that, fortunately, a federal appeals court has just struck down. "There are various countries in Africa where big-game hunting is legal. And hunters from America, Europe, the Arab countries, and now Asia too, all travel to these countries," explains Crosta. There are hunting reserves, the so-called hunting concessions, open even in Texas, where it is possible to hunt wild animals by paying substantial sums of money: last year someone paid one million dollars just to kill a black rhinoceros in Namibia.
Trump's sons are both hunters, so perhaps "someone close to the family told him: lift these two bans so we can finally go to Zimbabwe and come back with elephant tusks — and not just tusks, but lion heads and a whole wide range of trophies. In my opinion he didn't think it through, he said it and unleashed public fury."
Read also: Elephants and lions: the United States had wanted to legalise the importation of hunting trophies from Zambia and Zimbabwe
Crosta points out that, despite the story receiving wide media coverage, the real problems lie elsewhere. First of all, Zambia and Zimbabwe are just two of the countries where hunting is legal. Moreover, hunters very often break specific laws, and that is where Eal steps in: "They shoot from moving vehicles, at night, they use semi-automatic rifles, bait, they shoot while animals are drinking. They do a lot of things that are prohibited." And the biggest problem is the tonnes of ivory that travel from Africa to Asia every year.
The justification that the International Safari Club — the organisation representing hunters in the United States (and a very powerful one, much like the gun lobby) — puts forward to justify the existence of these reserves is that the money paid by hunters enables local communities to guarantee species conservation. "It's a convenient excuse; I'd actually prefer it if they said they go to Africa because they enjoy killing animals," exclaims Crosta. Elephant Action League investigations have revealed that very few local people work in the hunting concessions. "The money ends up in the pockets of the government, in the form of bribes, and in those of the hunting reserve owners." The money that reaches local people is minimal and bears no comparison whatsoever to that generated by tourism, by "millions and millions of tourists who arrive in Africa every year without a rifle."
The notion that the money serves conservation "is a fairy tale that hunters tell themselves: I still haven't worked out whether they actually believe it or not — maybe some of them really do," speculates Crosta, "but they are blind. They arrive in first class, they're taken to these incredible concessions with fantastic lodges; in my opinion they don't even see the real Africa, the one outside the hunting zone. They take their animal, hand it over to the taxidermist who cuts it into pieces, and go back to America. They know absolutely nothing about Africa or about conservation."
A great many animals are at risk, and their cause is not always followed with the same interest as that of elephants. Only 350,000 pachyderms remain, yet despite everything it is these extraordinary animals — which always help one another in times of difficulty and are capable of recognising a person years later — that finally have a reason for hope. China is definitively closing its ivory market from Sunday 31 December: we believe it is an excellent way to close out 2017. There are many good intentions for 2018, too. And thanks to the help of Elephant Action League, we can hope they will not remain merely on paper.