National Geographic Live! - Bringing China and Africa Together to Save Elephants | Nat Geo Live

The future of the African elephant is threatened by the illegal ivory trade. People are unable to organize collective and effective conservation efforts. A way forward is to create a new social space for cross-cultural understanding and engagement.

I was almost killed by this elephant in Kenya. It was early morning on the 4th of March 2015. I was brushing my teeth by the bank of the river in the Samburu National Reserve with the conservation group's elephants that established a research camp.

It was not long before I realized a 3 m tall elephant was walking towards me slowly and elegantly. It felt like a dream as I looked into his eyes, but suddenly the elephant started to flap his ears very fiercely, standing no more than 5 m away from me. I said to myself, “Oh no, I'm done with my life.” I turned and started running, and the elephant started to charge after me.

This was the most unforgettable moment in my past eight years as a professional conservationist. Fortunately, my life was saved when other colleagues, who were more familiar with the situation, rushed out of the camp and stopped the elephant. This experience always reminds me of the extreme complexity of wildlife conservation. Fundamentally, conservation is about the way we human beings collectively make decisions as to sharing the planet Earth with other living creatures.

Just like building the Tower of Babel is not easy, this is not an easy task. We do not speak a single language; we are all different in terms of our identity, our perspectives, and our priorities, our values. How to unravel such complex social interactions, and how to build a broad coalition for wildlife conservation, given all these differences, has become the focus of my pursuit in the past few years.

I still remember how confused I was at the very beginning of my research. The worst thing is that China is the main destination for illegal wildlife ivory. Chinese tend to tell a very different story. Journalists and conservationists believe that economic growth in China in the past few decades has created a growing middle class who would like to buy the ivory to show off their social status.

But in China, people identify different ivory buyers, and they think the ivory trade in China is not a big issue. Ivory demand in China is very small. What I saw is the branding games continued. I was exposed to all these different stories. I was very confused about what was the truth and what was really going on there, and this motivated me to undertake the ivory trade as my Master's project at university.

On the surface, the future of the African elephant is threatened by the illegal ivory trade. This is the problem that most of us have already observed. But beneath the tip of the iceberg is a more fundamental problem: people are in disagreement, and people are unable to organize collective and effective conservation efforts.

In Western societies and in African societies, there are many misperceptions prevalent about Chinese demand for ivory. The Chinese are equally ignorant about what is going on in Africa. Many Chinese do not accept the fact that elephant poaching is serious in Africa, and many think the ivory trade is just an excuse that Western society uses to bring China to criticize its presence in Africa. The contentious situation, this kind of very conflict of ivory trade, reminds me of the ancient story about the different worlds outside and the picture in our head.

Different people, different groups, different institutions, different states, from different angles, usually see the problem in a different way. In order to resolve the conflict and to solve the problem, it is very important that we reconcile all these different perspectives. A way forward, I believe, is to innovate a new social space for cross-cultural understanding and engagement.

In 2014, I invited two Kenyan conservationists on a trip to China. The three of us, within just two weeks, visited five cities of ivory trading centers in the southern part of China. We did not represent any organization; we just went there as individuals who really care about the future of elephants.

We visited ivory markets, we talked to the general public, and we interacted with local NGOs. Our campaign was covered by the media in every city we went. The interaction, the face-to-face interaction with my Kenyan friends, has helped the Chinese audience gain a better understanding of elephant poaching in Africa and what it means to African people. Equally important, this experience also helped my Kenyan friends to reflect on their previous assumptions about the ivory market in China.

In the past few years, I have seen more and more organizations trying to do the same thing, trying to innovate a new social space to create the China-Africa conversation on conservation issues, and I believe this is a positive trend that we should reinforce.

My research on the ivory trade has brought me to many places around the world: in Africa, in Asia, in the US, in Europe, in Australia. I have met many people of different identities: herders, farmers, conservationists, rangers, ivory buyers, poachers, government officials—the list goes on and on.

We might be different in the language we speak, in the culture we practice, in the society we live in, but what I found is that almost all the people I met share the same goal—a common goal for a better life, where they can retain their dignity for themselves and also for those they care about.

I believe this vision cannot be possible without a healthy and flourishing environment, a biodiversity that offers human society tons of benefits. Together, we can ensure the wonder and the joy of wildlife, which can last far into the future. Thank you.