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0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Our View: A place to sleep ... Is BSA right to allow gay scout leaders? ... Ticket Availability ... Our View: A place to sleep ... Is BSA right to allow gay scout leaders? ... Ticket Availability ... COMMENTARY Chris Honoré: The journey of the African elephant Comment By Chris Honoré DailyTidings.com By Chris Honoré Posted May. 18, 2015 at 12:01 AM By Chris Honoré Posted May. 18, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Social News Writing about the environment can often feel quixotic, the equivalent of charging at windmills or walking a downtown street with a sandwich board declaring “The End is Near!” as people rush by, taking little notice. It’s the “taking little notice” that fascinates and disturbs. To attempt to understand our passive reaction to an irrefutable reality — our planet and its countless species are reaching the point of exhaustion — can seem ever elusive. Perhaps it has something to do with denial. Daily life with all its exigencies is enough. Or perhaps confronting our rapaciousness regarding our planet and its finite resources is more than we want to deal with. As well, reading about what is taking place regarding our environment, irrespective of the real-time evidence, can still seem hypothetical, abstract. There is also an “end times” apocalyptic dimension that in the hands of Hollywood and sci-fi writers can entertain but never really penetrate, seeming more surreal than real. Besides, most narratives that grip our imaginations take place in a post-apocalyptic world where the catastrophe has already occurred and the challenge now is survival in a ruined, Darwinian landscape ruled by anarchy. We denizens of the early 21st century find ourselves in that long pre-apocalyptic moment where we are told that there is still time. We can still act. And yet we don’t. Steve Almond, writing in the New York Times Magazine, proffered the idea that we “lack the moral imagination.” Reaching for a metaphor, consider the plight of the African elephant. Its current journey is an eloquent and tragic and heart-wrenching representation of what may lie ahead for mankind. In a recent New Yorker article, Peter Canby explains that the African elephant is not just in harm’s way, but in crisis. He describes what poachers are prepared to do to harvest their tusks, describing a caravan of heavily armed men, riding horseback, their destination Bouba-Nijida National Park in Cameroon where they will shoot elephants, methodically sawing off their faces and tusks, sometimes when the animals are still alive. In the three months this gang of poachers is in the park they kill 650 elephants. For them it’s an economic process. They know, Canby writes, that demand for ivory is increasing, especially in Asia. “Once prized by Chinese aristocrats, it is now sought by members of China’s growing middle class, who buy ivory cigarette holders, chopsticks, and even miniature elephants. In Hong Kong, a hub of illegal trade, ivory can sell for three thousand dollars a pound… A pair of carved tusks can be worth two hundred thousand dollars.” We know that elephants are under siege by criminal organizations as well as terror groups. We know that they are integral to the ecology of Africa. Forest elephants are referred to as “megagardeners” — they disperse in their dung the seeds of tropical fruit trees that replenish the trees and flora. Between 2002 and 2011, their numbers have declined by 62 percent. Their habitat has been eroded by a third and, writes Canby, scientists are using the word “extinction” to describe their bleak future. We know the elephants of the plains and the forests are worth saving. There will be nothing like them again should they disappear from the wild (only to be seen in zoos or, deplorably, circuses). And yet it is regrettably clear that we will fail to act. The world community will not save this spectacular species. We will, instead, one day fashion a weak eulogy that will vanish like so much mist in the wind. We know what will happen to the African elephant. And in truth, we know what lies ahead for our environment. Our planet continues to warm, sea levels rise, extreme weather is the new normal, our over-fished oceans grow increasingly acidic, coral reefs are dying, species are vanishing and the world we are leaving for our children and their children will be increasingly barren of animals and resources. It does sound apocalyptic, even hyperbolic. A kind of end times cant. But in an unexpected way the African elephant is the precursor to a future where those who inherit the earth will pause and ask why we failed to find the will. Chris Honoré lives in Ashland. By Chris Honoré DailyTidings.com By Chris Honoré Posted May. 18, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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