將大象逼入絕境的象牙貿易

On the fringes of Queen Elizabeth NationalPark in western Uganda, farmers drum loudly throughout the night to scare offtheir most destructive enemy: the elephant.

在位於烏干達西部的伊麗莎白女王國家公園的邊緣，農民們整晚奮力敲着鼓嚇走對他們來說最具破壞性的敵人——大象。

In the nearby Bwindi rainforest, smallsurviving herds of savannah elephants, cut off from their diminishing naturalhabitat, have adapted to a hidden existence beneath the canopy.

在附近的布恩迪(Bwindi)雨林，小羣倖存的草原象(savannah elephant)遠離了它們日益縮小的自然棲息地，適應了躲在樹蔭下的隱蔽生活。

Throughout Africa, elephants and humans arein intense conflict.

縱觀整個非洲，大象和人類正處於激烈的衝突之中。

Humans are winning.

人類即將贏得勝利。

A hundred years ago there were 10melephants roaming the continent.

100年前，這片大陸上生存着1000萬頭大象。

By the mid-1970s that number had collapsedto 1.3m.

到上世紀70年代中期，大象的數量銳減至130萬頭。

So had the elephants’range, withherds restricted to ever-smaller pockets of land in ever-fewer countries.

大象的生存範圍也是一樣，象羣的棲息地越來越小，分佈的國家也日益減少。

Today, there are 400,000 elephants left,roughly a third of them squeezed into one relatively safe haven, Botswana.

如今，非洲僅存40萬頭大象，將近三分之一分佈在博茨瓦納這個相對安全的天堂。

The story of the elephant is one ofretreat, retreat, retreat, retreat, says Patrick Bergin, chief executive of theAfrican Wildlife Foundation, a conservation group.

大象的故事就是一個不斷後退的故事，保護組織非洲野生動物基金會(African Wildlife Foundation)的首席執行官帕特里克•貝爾然(PatrickBergin)表示。

If loss of habitat is the biggest problem,it will only worsen.

如果說失去棲息地是大象最大的問題，那麼情況只會越來越糟糕。

Africa has the world’s highesthuman fertility rates.

非洲是全世界人口生育率最高的地區。

In the next 30 years, the continent’s populationwill double to 2bn.

未來30年，非洲的人口將增加一倍，達到20億人。

In another half century it could doubleagain.

之後再過50年，非洲人口可能再次翻番。

Then there is the slaughter.

此外，這裏還存在屠殺。

In the 20th century, it was white gamehunters.

在20世紀，獵殺大象的是熱衷狩獵遊戲的白人。

In the 21st it is Asian ivory collectors,whose appetite and wealth has encouraged poaching on an industrial scale.

到了21世紀，是亞洲的象牙收藏者，他們的品味愛好和財富催生了盜獵產業。

It is hardly the first time humans havedriven mammals towards extinction.

這不是人類首次把哺乳動物推向滅絕境地。

Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens, callsus ecological serial killers.

《人類簡史》(Sapiens)的作者尤瓦爾•赫拉利(Yuval Noah Harari)把我們稱爲生態系統的連環殺手。

The sabre-tooth tiger had existed for 30myears.

劍齒虎曾經生存了3000萬年。

Within 2,000 years of its first contactwith humans, it had vanished forever.

它們與人類首次接觸後的2000年內，劍齒虎永遠地消失了。

A similar fate befell a range of animalsfrom mammoths and mastodons, a distant relation of the elephant, to giantsloths.

同樣的命運降臨在一系列物種身上，從猛獁象和乳齒象（大象的遠親）到大地懶。

Even before humans had invented the wheel,they had destroyed half of all big terrestrial animals.

人類在發明車輪以前，已經毀滅了一半的大型陸棲動物。

If humans are uncontrollable serialkillers, then surely the elephants’fate is sealed.

如果說人類是不可控制的連環殺手，那麼大象的命運無疑已經註定。

Inevitably they will go the way of theAmerican lion.

它們將不可避免地走上美洲獅的老路。

At best, they will be driven tonear-extinction, preserved in a few city zoos and armed-to-the teethsanctuaries.

最樂觀的情況是，它們被逼到近乎滅絕的地步，保留在一些城市動物園和全副武裝的保護區內。

Or can anything be done to preserve theworld’s largest land mammal in anything like its present numbers? Thereare two strategies to arrest the catastrophe.

或者人類能做什麼來使這種世界上最大的陸地哺乳動物維持在現有數量？有兩種策略可以阻止大象滅絕。

Unfortunately, they pull in oppositedirections.

遺憾的是，這兩種策略可以說是背向而馳。

There are obvious flaws in this strategy.

該策略存在明顯的缺點。

Ban anything, from cocaine to Kalashnikovs,and the result is gruesomely predictable: its price will rise.

從可卡因到卡拉什尼科夫(Kalashnikov)衝鋒槍，所有禁令的結果都是可以預見的：價格攀升。

That would energise poaching, not stop it.

這無法阻止偷獵行爲，反而會刺激偷獵。

Even if, by some miracle, the policy workedand ivory lost its monetary value, African farmers would be left with maraudingherds of worthless mammals.

即使出現奇蹟，政策起到作用、象牙失去了經濟價值，非洲農民也不得不對付毫無價值、四處獵食的象羣。

Other than their intrinsic beauty, theywould be valuable only insofar as local people could capture some of theresulting tourist dollars.

除了天生的優點之外，大象的價值只有在當地人從遊客身上獲得好處時才能體現。

The opposite approach would be to legalisethe trade entirely.

另一個截然相反的辦法是讓象牙貿易完全合法化。

Like debasing a currency, the idea would beto force an elephant devaluation.

和貨幣貶值一樣，該策略是迫使大象貶值。

Under this scenario, the market would beflooded with existing stockpiles and arrangements put in place to harvest tusks.

在這種情況下，市場中將會涌入庫存象牙，當局可以實施收穫象牙的機制。

The hope would be to drive the price belowthat at which it is worth the risk and cost of poaching.

希望在於這將使得象牙價格降到低於偷獵成本的水平。

Call it fiat ivory.

可以稱之爲合法象牙。

A sustainable harvesting approach hasmerit.

可持續收穫方法有其優點。

But it may be too late to try.

但是，現在再嘗試可能爲時已晚。

Mr Bergin says there are too many humansand too few animals. Legalisation of ivory would be a deathknell, he says.

貝爾然稱，現在人類太多，而大象太少，象牙貿易合法化可能會敲響大象滅絕的喪鐘。

Two experimental auctions, in 1997 and2008, breathed life into the illegal trade by creating fungible ivory.

1997年和2008年兩次試驗性的拍賣，通過創造可交換象牙而爲非法貿易注入了活力。

Yet if partial legalisation failed, so hasthe 25-year prohibition.

不過，如果部分合法化這條路行不通，那麼長達25年的禁令也一樣。

Once again, elephant populations are inalarming decline.

大象數量再次急劇減少。

The bigger question still is whether humansand wild animals can live side by side.

但是更大的問題是人類和野生動物能否並存。

Africa is huge.

非洲地域遼闊。

It could accommodate the US, China, Indiaand western Europe.

超過美國、中國、印度和西歐的面積總和。

But from the elephants’ perspective, it isa shrinking universe.

但是對大象來說，世界正在縮小。

Unless African governments, working inconjunction, can protect areas of wilderness and connecting corridors indefinitelyfrom development, the debate on ivory trading will be a sideshow.

除非非洲各國政府通力合作保護原野和連接走廊永久地免受開發的威脅，否則關於象牙貿易的爭論只能成爲餘興談資。

That is the mastodon in the room.

這就像房間裏的乳齒象，豈能視而不見。