NAIROBI, Kenya - Militant groups in Central and East Africa are cashing in on the lucrative ivory trade to fund their operations across the continent, threatening both regional security and the survival of Africa's endangered elephants.
Demand from increasingly affluent China and Southeast Asian nations has driven a surge in elephant poaching in recent years, leading to the deaths of tens of thousands of the animals annually, wildlife monitoring groups say.
But in a new development, armed insurgent groups like Uganda's brutal Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), Somalia's Qaeda-linked Al Shabaab and Sudan's Janjaweed militia are joining organized criminal networks as major players in the illicit trade.
The groups are either trafficking tusks internationally for cash, or trading ivory for food and ammunition. Experts say trafficked ivory is now equivalent to conflict diamonds, mined in war zones to fund insurgencies or militias.
"We know how minerals fuel conflicts," said Kasper Agger, who researches the LRA for the DC-based Enough Project advocacy group, which focuses on raising awareness of genocide and crimes against humanity. "But with the growing prices, ivory is also starting to fuel conflict. We have to see it in that context - that it is equally damaging to regional security."
President Barack Obama signed earlier this month an executive order establishing a high-level Presidential Task Force on Wildlife Trafficking to address what is described as "an international crisis that continues to escalate."
The executive order states that wildlife trafficking generates "billions of dollars in illicit revenues each year, contributing to the illegal economy, fueling instability and undermining security."
Welcoming the US initiative John Scanlon, secretary-general of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, said it "sends a powerful message both domestically and internationally on the need to treat wildlife crime as a serious crime on a par with narcotics and arms trafficking."
Illegal wildlife trafficking is worth as much as $19 billion each year, making it the fourth most lucrative illegal industry after narcotics, counterfeiting and human trafficking, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
In a March report, the United Nations Environment Program warned that poaching levels in Africa have more than doubled since 2007.
When it comes to ivory, the trade is indeed lucrative.
A kilogram of elephant ivory has a black market price of about $2,200, while a rhino horn will for a staggering $66,000 per kilo, according to the senior director for African affairs at the National Security Staff of the White House.
Somalia's Al Shabaab militia could be trafficking ivory through Kenya to supply "up to 40 percent of the funds needed to keep them in business," says the Los Angeles-based Elephant Action League, an advocacy group.
Al Shabaab is an Al Qaeda-affiliated militant group, which at various times has controlled large swathes of Somalia, including the capital Mogadishu. An African Union peacekeeping force is said to have significantly weakened the group over the past two years, depriving Al Shabaab of territory and much-needed revenue.
