don't take my word for it u just look at the facts, according to the african wild live funds, rhino poaching increased by 3,000%. in south africa alone. consider that more than 23 metric tons of illegal ivory were pieced last year, that's nearly 2,500 elephants. the net effect of these degree gradations is more violence and more corruption, not to mention the devastation of existing and potential opportunities for tourism and economic development

and ultimately the depravation with respect to the stability of whole regions. so given these very real risks, i am convinced it is incumbent on all of us to ask what's causing this resurgence in poaching and what can be done to combat it. the demand side of this equation is crucial. east asia is the primary destination for ivory and other products. people are buying it. the united states and others have made some substantial seizures, but clearly a lot more needs to be done to e. working collaboratively with

asian countries in order to reduce demand. >> improve international efforts to reduce trafficking of all kinds. and we'll hear today from our witnesses that the international community has also expanded its efforts to track money and to follow that money throughout the trafficking business. before it's too late, we need to

explore dr. douglas hamilton visited with us last week and we scheduled this hearing on somewhat short notice. i appreciate his leadership over many, many years. he is the founder of save the elephants and he has spent the last 40 years on elephant conservation in africa.

gentlemen we welcome you here today. this is a somewhat out of the ordinary hearing. . >> thank you to our witnesses for everything you are doing. i was just sharing with dr. douglas hamilton before we began that my own experience in traveling in uganda and kenya 25 years ago included visiting a national park that had been almost now president yosemite was seeking control. this was in 1987. and i was left haunted to god's creation being destructed.

there's been this virtuous cycle where recognizing the value of conserving elephants and other animals for their own safety has led to the prospect of development for the countries that host these amazing creatures and has also led to a steady drop in -- what we're here to consider today is an unfortunate natural venal vortex that's going the opposite direction. just as in central africa, a number of -- lack of central control, a lack of organized armed opposition, a lack of coordination and collaboration across countries, so too we put at risk majestic species, bioopportunity to -- put at risk the prospects for conservation. there's been a report that details just how many billions

of dollars go into the coffers of resistance movements and the terrorist movements that are outside the rule of law. as to chairman kerry, i know that senator isaacson reflect a broad community both republican and democrat that welcome your efforts and want us to put conservation ahead -- >> again i say thank you for your concern and your leadership in this area, it's been of enormous import, we appreciate it.

>> i'm deeply grateful for this response from the highest levels of the united states of america. and i'm honored to appear before this committee. and i am actually appeared both in the '70s and the '80s on the same issue, when elephants were in peril. and i have testified three timings before congress. we are now again in that situation. what's happening to elephants is appalling. more so that we have been through these ivory -- there is an escalated crisis in south africa. it is driven by demand in china, the demand exceeds the supply.

it creates security threats as well as conservation impacts. much of the creating being led by organized crime which undermines good governments, destabilizes security and causes the illegal i canning of ikills on a massive scale. the solutions are to increase funding for anti-poaching efforts, an environmental governance through programs managed by u.s. fish and wildlife service and the state department including u.s. aid funding. we should explore opportunities to use the resources of homeland security to address this global security threat. because otherwise, if allowed to develop, it could breed something that comes back to hit you.

we should use new ways of thinking outside the box, using high-tech solutions and above all, we should work more closely in partnership with china to reduce demand at the highest levels of diplomacy. i want to thank quickly the role the u.s. has played in helping to conserve african elephants. key funding for u.s. agencies specifically, u.s. fish and wildlife service has provided consistent funding through the african elephant conservation fund, and then there's u.s. aid, which has helped save landscapes where elephants live and collectively, and work together with the state department, these u.s.-led efforts have made a huge impact in the past.

i can't forget the ngos who played a critical role of always being out there in the front line. wwf, wildlife conservation society. wildlife conservation network, nature conservancy and african wildlife foundations and many others. we have been here before with this crisis. if you go back long enough, elephants were nearly exterminated in the victorian era and it was only in the early 20th century that they were able to recover when new game laws came in. this culminated in the 1960s, which was a golden era for the national parks where animals for the first time became tame and approachable and exposed to tourism. unfortunately the ivory trade surged in the '70s and '80s.

this caused massive losses. 700 tons of ivory a year on average representing about 70,000 elephants left africa annually for the best part of a decade. the estimated elephant population droppeded from 1.3 million in '79 to half that number by the mid '80s. and in most of east africa, central africa, with a few exceptions in southern africa, there were massive drops in numbers. the evidence now is that strong demand for ivory has researched again. i would like quickly to talk about a case study which is in northern kenya, where the save the elephants foundation

conducts minute debted research by reporting the births deaths and -- to record elephants recover very well. in the last two decades, up until about 2008. we found that there was a steady increase in poaching and a tipping point was reached in 2008. where the elephants nosed over, starting with a big drought and ending with a big decline which is only going on at the present. this will cause, terrible suffering for the elephants. big bulls have been largely wiped out and now the big cows are being attacked and the females, the matriarchs are being removed, leaving great suffering amongst the family and a higher death rate amongst the

offspring. the worst hit place in africa is central africa. there's a very good documentation of this by the wildlife conservation society, the paper is coming out and it will show that central africa has lost more than half its elephants in the last ten years. i want to say that all these threads of information have come together, they have cross triangulated and they have quickly at the front line, there are scientists, there are wildlife departments, wardens, there's the press, journalists and there are the ngos. the second line is african elephant specialist group of the international union for the conservation of nature. they have a program that coordinates reports coming in and increasingly, this is being put immediately on public record. the next group are traffic,

joint program of wwf and again the iucm. they have an elephant parade information service that cracks the needle ivory and it relies on very hard data that gives the big picture across the world. in 2009, 2010 and 2011, there's been a rapid escalation in the seizures of illegal ivory. the head of -- referred to 2 202011 as a horrible year for elephants. finally it allows us to get a handle on what's happening, is monitoring the illegal killing of elephants, which is a program of the convention on international trade and endangered species, data

gathered from this program matched what happened with this ivory data, it increased from 2006 on. and finally, last year was a record bad year in the levels of the illegal killing of elephants. this covered all four regions of africa. once again, the central was shown to be the worst. west africa was bad, east africa, there's hardly anything left there. levels of illegal killing which are beyond the level that the experts think is sustainable. the implications for security are enormous. and this crime is opportunistic, and large tracts of africa, the poachers target the softest

populations, and they go from one population to another. the reason we became so worried is because it was a well protected poll lapopulation, if that could happen in a well protected population, it could happen to other well protected populations elsewhere. and that would be on the record in nature. the worst case that has been recorded recently is this terrible incident that took place in cameroon where 200 and perhaps upwards of 400 elephants were killed by a heavily amprme well organized militia, they traveled probably 1,000 miles on horse back to get there, they may have come from sudan or from chad, and it's interesting that they are now avoiding the park

in chad because it has received good funding and has now become a slightly harder target to hit. also in vethere's been another massacre where an army helicopter was involved and again, a group of elephants were shot down. now, despite the fact that the overall picture is very dire, there are some success stories that point to what can be done. there's been successes recently in places that have received good funding and good programs with strong aid support. these include parks in gawan, in chad, and the national parks in kenya, zanga zanga in the

central african republic. in zakouma, elephants were being killed at the rate of 800 per year and dropped to 700 per year. poaching gangs have been confronted and the reductions in the number of poached elephants has been observed from the air and independently confirmed. likewise in northern kenya, a similar surge has resulted in a notable decrease in illegally killed elephants over the last six weeks. the way that we have to tackle this problem, there's three main ways, to confront elephant poaching in the field, to reduce free trade nationally and internationally and to reduce excessive demand. the methods i know best to use

is northern kenya, in the northern range in trust area, this is an ngo that makes deals with communities so they get a benefit from the con serving vegas option. northern kenya is being settled through the creation of group ranches and they can -- it is vital that when they do so, they do so with good governance and the movement in northern kenya is to get that good governance so that the community elects officials, a chairman and a treasurer, holds annual elections, has accounts and doesn't escape those essentials which could lead to corruption. the result is you then get support from the communities. and we have seen amazing increases in information about poachers coming in there. of course they also need a good foreign network, a rapid

response, anti-poaching team, skilled trackers, local volunteer scouts. we want in northern kenya to create role models of conservations who have been looked up to and found a conservation effort based on local values. local ranger forces can become an elite. i personally believe also that high-tech solutions can help. we have got to think outside the box. tracking of elephants by gps and satellite has been pioneered by save the elephants, in kenya, central africa and south africa. it's now proved to be greatly useful in improving elephant security. we're developing ining al -- i were ever a possibility to engage a u.s. agency to harness

those intellectual and financial resources, a small investment could enormously help to save elephants and to promote stability. we dream of developing a high-tech collar that will incorporate more sensors and can be used for tactical use, including gunshot detection, accelera accelerate ometers it. the other named priority is to tackle demand for ivory. currently china emerges as the leading driver of the illegal trade of ivory. 90% of ivory seized at kenya's airports are from chaepds nationalists. in hindsight, it looks as if the

new spike in demand for ivory resulting poaching crisis was exacerbateded by the decision in 2008 to allow the sale to china of illegal ivory. this seems to have stimulated demand as we predicted might be the case. it doesn't seem to be problematic for these consumers to buy ivory, if some is legal and some isn't, it creates confusion. i visited china in october, to learn how the chinese regarded their own elephants. the last of the wild elephants are still harpooned out in the forest. i learned that the chinese highly value their own wild elephants and they're strictly protected. if china would develop a leadership role in africa as will as in her own country with respect to elephants, much of the problem could be solved. if the buying stops, the killing

can too. so for the first time in history, continental africa was largely the chinese living in africa and individually shipping out ivory. there's more disposable income in china today than the history of ivory being a luxury commodity. the ivory trade controls internally and china had broken down. in other words those controls imagineded to be at the heart of the last one of sales have famed. finally, the united states government should, could use its considerable diplomatic influence to join with china in a leadership role, to take immediate measures to end the illegal trade. china's recent actions are very

welcome. but they need to be enshrined and sustained over the long-term. ideally the u.s. government could share some awareness of the urgent situation and work with the joint leadership of china to solve the problem. if china would declare a moratorium on ivory imports, there would be a better future for elephants in africa. and -- failing these needed actions, the u.s. government should ensure that those countries driving the demand are held to task at the upcoming conference of the parties in march 2013. maybe the u.s. should consider applications of the amendment and the sanctions process that the law offers in cases where -- i can think of no wildlife

situation more serious than that facing the african elephant. thank you for giving your precious time to listen to the plight of elephants, referring to prehistoric elephants, 10,000 years ago, they lived here in this country. and i hope we can avoid repeating that hunting that led to their demise. thank you. >> thank you very much, dr. hamilton. i understand you have a video? >> yes. >> how long is the video? >> i think it's just a minute or two. >> can we show that now before we have -- yes. >> it comes from bbc panorama. >> the largest animal on earth is under threat. some herds have been decimated at an alarming rate. >> i'm truly worried about the future of elephants. some places have lost almost all

their elephants. >> they're still being hunted for their ivory, despite a trade ban in place for more than 20 years. >> here it is. >> ask him why the elephant was killed? >> these people are armed, and very well armed, they carry ak-47s. >> even the youngest in the firing line. >> and seizures of illegal ivory are at a new high. >> what is at the heart of the illegal killing of elephants in africa can be summarized in one word, money. >> we go under cover to find the ivory dealers. >> $10,000 for one. >> we see the new technology being used to track down the criminals. >> these poachers are hammering the same area over and over and over again. >> we go on the trail of the

poachers, smugglers and organized crime groups. into a web that stretches over southeast asia and beyond, to china, the biggest ivory buyer at all. >> 90% of all people arrested at the airports are carrying ivory. >> if china can curb it's demand, elephants will survive in africa. >> one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. >> but can this demand be stifled? before it is already too late. >> that sums it up pretty effectively. thank you very, very much doctor. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

senator coons and members of the committee. appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to make the connection between illegal wildlife trafficking and national security. global financial integrity is a washington, d.c. based organization to -- capacity of the global financial system, the facilitating role the lack of transparency plays in money laundering and corruption and the threat it poses to the security of all nations. ivory poaching, like all forms of illegal wildlife trade is a very profitable business. global financial integrity estimated the value of the elicit trade in all forms of wildlife, excluding fishing, at up to $10 billion annually. in recent years, organized crime se send cats -- wildlife trafficking, generating an alarming uptick in the scale of

industry and posing serious national security concerns for the u.s. organized criminal networks involved in illicit wildlife trafficking use sophisticated money laundering schemes to prevent detection and prosecution. obscuring the money trail and impeding law enforcement investigations. they are frequently used not just by traffickers, but also by terrorists, drug cartels, armed dealers, tax evaders, rogue states to easily launder their money. unfortunately, the united states is a breeding ground for these shell corporations. it is estimated that nearly 2 million companies are established in the u.s. each year and the vast majority of