Faune

Hardcover, 184 pages, ENG, 300 x 235 x 20 mm, dustjacket, good condition, illustrated in colour / b/w. ISBN 9780701126339. This challenging treatise on African elephants and the ivory trade remains an important and groundbreaking work in its field. Foremost authority on the world's ivory trade, a leading expert on the management of elephants, a former game warden, farmer and hunter, Ian Parker draws on 25 years of field experience in Africa to illuminate the key issues behind conservation today. His conclusions are startling. The traditional villains -- the poachers and the ivory traders -- are not as responsible for the plight of elephants in many African countries as is generally alleged. The fault lies much more with the governments of those countries where game laws are outdated and corruption is commonplace, and with the international conservation bodies which, inept and insufficient as they often are, have much to answer for, no matter how good the cause they are serving. Ian Parker's message is both carefully considered and deeply disturbing. If there is an ivory crisis (and even the pessimists admit that there are over a million elephants in Africa today), it is the activities of the conservationists themselves which constitute the main danger to the survival of the African elephant.