All,

I've been keeping up with this story so can provide you with an update :

The Namibian Government issued six trophy hunting permits for bull elephants of the Kunene region, an area where there is perhaps only 20 bulls left. To date 5 out of the 6 elephants have been shot. Coverage of this tragic story is indeed beginning to gain momentum, however we fear that without more international pressure, the hunting will continue and the last elephant bull will be shot.

Elephant Human Relations Aid (EHRA), a Namibian NGO that helps communal farmers in the area deal with elephant-human conflict issues has issued a press release on this subject - Below is the link to their website and the press release ... The news section of their website also has lots of background information on the subject.

http://www.desertelephant.org/news.php

If you care about this issue then please sign the petition (see link below) and do what you can to keep pressure on the Namibian Government to stop the hunting:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/savethedesertelephant/

Thanks

Laura

hi everyone. this is joe from ehra. we flagged this issue, as it seems like a lot of the big organizations dealing with this has become so dependent on the political goodwill of the government, that they choose to ignore issues for the sake of not rocking the boat. massive work has been done by organizations like IRDNC to promote the sustainable use of wildlife in comunual areas. and yes, heads are down, as most of them cannot answer me on accurate figures, and the elitist attitude about conservation out here is being challenged. nothing on this planet can be someone elses problem anymore. these elephants are unique, and we cannot allow the big boys to shrug them of as collateral damage for the sake of the bigger picture anymore. this issue is regional, and i am sure they are making larger gains on the bigger picture. conservation lies in your backyard. what do you do? allow corporations to take over? the shame is that the large conservation corporations are now just controlling resources for political gain. no wonder they tried to buy us out years ago when we started. they knew this day would come. in this day crimes against nature is crimes against humanity. we have to understand and look after the tree to know the forest. putting your cents in a panda in the airport does not change things, you do. support what is happening here by looking at your own back yard.
thank you to all
joe

Wow, I am impressed on the amount of feedback we are getting on this topic!! Thank you Laura for signing up, posting the update and details on where and how to help.

Joe, thanks for signing up and expressing your very true (unfortunately), and clear words. It is rare to find an organization leaning so far out of the window. As you probably read above, we have come to the conclusion that many organisations don't want to rock any boats at all anymore and prefer to do their own things without having anyone looking into their cards. There are definitely a lot of organisations out there that are not worth sponsoring anymore. In fact, we are thinking of sniffing around a little bit deeper in the projects conducted by organisations and enterprises that consider themselves as eco-friendly and publish the information on Bushdrums.com. We are independent because we don't depend on donations or other income and therefore have the "freedom" to do so. But more about this another time in a separate thread.

I am sorry to say this, but I am loosing faith in all these petitions that I am asked to sign all the time. To be honest, I have never signed a petition and heard positive results from it afterwards. My question that evolves from that is, what else can we do to stop this crazy people? Boycot? Doesn't seem to work either. Maybe it would if everyone did, but if everyone would boycot everything they should for the protection of something, we would need to erase some 80% of everything we consume and not go anywhere anymore.

There has to be something else that can be done

I like to think Carsten that, although the outcome of a situation seldom seems to be altered by a petition it does give you a voice & I hope temper future decisions of governments.
A petition informs a democratically elected government that people do care & it is being monitored.

Here in the UK we are able to raise & sign petitions directly with the government on their own web site. If nothing else it informs our government of the views of the electorate.