Catholic appeal for the world's elephants

Baby Asian elephant being 'disciplined'

Chris Fegan, Chief Executive of Catholic Concern for Animals writes:

The world's elephant populations are in great peril both in Africa and in Asia both as species and also as individuals. This threat to the elephant stems mostly from human abuse including poaching for ivory, habitat destruction and the tourist trade.

Catholic Concern for Animals (CCA) have worked for many years on all of these issues especially in the worldwide attempts to stop the ivory trade as have our colleagues at Save the Asian Elephant (STAE) who have done a tremendous job in highlighting the threat to the Asian elephant caused by the abuse of Asia's "working elephants" which cater for the tourist trade in India and other parts of Asia.

The Asian Elephant is officially classified as "endangered" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) whilst the African elephant is classified as "vulnerable".

We have seen the threat to elephants increase for many years and decades now and just as the world needs to understand the need to save and protect the world biggest marine animals which are of course the whales we also need to take urgent action to save the world biggest land animal mammal which is of course the elephant.

All creatures belong to God as part of creation including the elephant and we as humans owe a duty of care to them and Catholics worldwide need to work together to support and help the African and Asian elephant, as indeed we need to do for all of God's creation.

This message of our duty for care of creation was emphasized by Pope Francis in his groundbreaking Encyclical on the Environment Laudato Si' which was published in 2015. The Encyclical, has many references to God's non-human creation and our duty of care and the following section is relevant in our discussion of elephants:

Laudato Si: 42

Because all creatures are connected, each must be cherished with love and respect, for all of us as living creatures are dependent on one another. Each area is responsible for the care of this family. This will require undertaking a careful inventory of the species which it hosts, with a view to developing programs and strategies of protection with particular care for safeguarding species heading towards extinction.

Pope Francis is explicitly telling us here of our obligation to love and respect our fellow living creatures and this of course includes the elephants of Africa and Asia.

As previously mentioned the threats to the elephant are diverse from the horrors of the ivory trade to the subtler threats posed in the treatment of the animals in supplying the tourist trade in Asia. It is often not realized by people for example taking "elephant rides" in counties such as Thailand the cruelty imposed on the individual elephants in catering for this "human enjoyment".

Of course elephants have also been part of the "entertainment industry" in Western society by their appalling historic use in circuses and hopefully after decades of campaigning this is coming to an end with "circuses with animals" being increasingly banned throughout the continent of Europe-the use and cruel abuse of elephants in the tourist trade in Asia must also come to an end!!

Of course "non abusive" tourism in the best state run Safari parks in parts of Africa is much less of a problem, although there again Safari parks can vary in their treatment of the animals, so much care needs to be taken in visiting such and research in advance is always to be encouraged.

I was delighted to attend a joint Vatican/United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Conference on the fourth Anniversary of Laudato Si' last year in Nairobi, Kenya to look at the issues of the threats to our common home and especially how we can engage and work with young people in particular to counter these. I was able to speak to the Apostolic Nuncio to Kenya and South Sudan and also senior Vatican official about the need for increased focus on Animal welfare in Africa.

CCA are accredited members of UNEP and also the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) and I was very pleased to follow up this work in Kenya and able to visit the Catholic Bishop of Masaka in Uganda to discuss the same need for Animal Welfare in Uganda and was also able to address an audiences of young Catholic organisers in Masala on the need for their increased animal welfare involvement.

It is pleasing to note that elephant numbers in both Kenya and Uganda are recovering and rising again after the work on reducing and stopping the appalling ivory trade and this focused work has significantly lowered the level of poaching (although there are worrying sign poaching may have increased again during 2020 because of Covid-19)-we need to continue to focus on reducing poaching and to try and have the same good news stories from other parts of Africa as we have seen in recent years in Kenya and Uganda in respect of increased numbers of elephant populations and also of course we desperately need good news from Asia where the situation facing the Asian elephant is much more critical in terms of the threat of extinction.

All of us as Catholics have our part to play, even if we live thousands of miles away from either Africa or Asia and we need to think, as the Pope requires us to do, about our daily relationship with "our common home" and our fellow creatures with whom we share it.

LINKS

Catholic Concern For Animals - https://catholic-animals.com/

Save the Asian Elephant - https://stae.org

Write to your MP - http://stae.org/write_to_your_mp/

Watch: The Elephants of Nong Nooch - a Modern Horror Story - https://vimeo.com/384543646