Page 20 - An Illusion of Complicity: Terrorism and the Illegal Ivory Trade in East Africa

Tom Maguire and Cathy Haenlein 7

have included this narrative in studies of the ivory trade and broader IWT.11 In framing his DNA
testing of seized ivory, Sam Wasser of the University of Washington touched on these linkages
to emphasis the counter-terrorism benefits of his research:12 ‘if you can track poached ivory,
you can also trace hot beds of terrorist activity’.13

The Media

These NGO and research advocates have had a strong influence on the media. The prevailing
narrative has largely cancelled out dissenting voices.14 The media, for example, has largely
ignored a 2014 United Nations Environmental Programme/INTERPOL report that concludes Al-
Shabaab’s charcoal revenues likely dwarf those potentially deriving from ivory.15 The fact that
no East African security-studies experts have lent their support has been similarly disregarded.
Ivory does not feature in the work of eminent scholars Stig Jarle Hansen, Christopher Anzalone,
Ken Menkhaus, Pater Gastrow or Matt Bryden.16

Poaching in Sub-Saharan Africa Funds Islamic Fundamentalism’, Consultancy Africa Intelligence, 1
September 2014.
11. Leo Douglas and Kelvin Alie, ‘High-Value Natural Resources: Linking Wildlife Conservation to
International Conflict, Insecurity, and Development Concerns’, Biological Conservation (Vol. 171,
March 2014), p. 273; Justin S Brashares et al., ‘Wildlife Decline and Social Conflict: Policies Aimed
at Reducing Wildlife-Related Conflict Must Address the Underlying Causes’, Science (Vol. 345, No.
6195, July 2014), p. 377.
12. For the most recent publication detailing Sam Wasser’s DNA work, see S K Wasser et al., ‘Genetic
Assignment of Large Seizures of Elephant Ivory Reveals Africa’s Major Poaching Hotspots’, Science
(Vol. 349, No. 6243, July 2015), pp. 84–87.
13. Seattle Channel, ‘CityStream: UW Elephant Tracking’, 12 December 2013, <http://www.
seattlechannel.org/videos?videoid=x21192>, accessed 17 August 2015. See also Steve Connor,
‘Two Geographical “Hotspots” in Africa Account for 85 Per Cent of Illegal Elephant Poaching, DNA
Study Finds’, Independent, 18 June 2015.
14. Tristan McConnell, ‘The Claim that Illegal Ivory is Funding a Major Terror Group in Africa May Not
Be True’, Global Post, 14 November 2014; Diogo Veríssimo, ‘Kathryn Bigelow and the Bogus Link
Between Ivory and Terrorism’, Conversation, 16 January 2015; Jessica L Anderson, ‘The Danger
of False Narratives: Al-Shabaab’s Faux Ivory Trade’, Council on Foreign Relations, 5 June 2015,
<http://blogs.cfr.org/campbell/2015/06/05/the-danger-of-false-narratives-al-shabaabs-faux-ivory-
trade>, accessed 17 August 2015; Vanda Felbab-Brown, ‘It’s Corruption, Stupid: Terrorism, Wildlife
Trafficking, and Obama’s Africa Trip’, Up Front (Brookings), 22 July 2015, <http://www.brookings.
edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2015/07/22-obama-africa-wildlife-felbabbrown>, accessed 17 August
2015.
15. Christian Nellemann et al., ‘The Environmental Crime Crisis’, pp. 13, 75–86. Exceptions include
Olive Burrows, ‘Charcoal Trade Poses Greater Risks than Poaching’, Capital News, 24 June 2014;
Ryan Lenora Brown, ‘Terror Group Al Shabab Doesn’t Smuggle Ivory for Cash. It Sells Charcoal’,
Christian Science Monitor, 25 June 2014; Cameron Lagrone and Josh Busby, ‘Is Wildlife Trafficking
a National Security Threat?’, New Security Beat (Wilson Center), 10 June 2015, <http://www.
newsecuritybeat.org/2015/06/wildlife-trafficking-national-security-threat>, accessed 17 August
2015.
16. Peter Gastrow, ‘Termites at Work: A Report on Transnational Organized Crime and State Erosion in
Kenya—Comprehensive Research Findings’, International Peace Institute, 2011; Stig Jarle Hansen,
Al-Shabaab in Somalia: The History and Ideology of a Militant Islamist Group, 2005–2012 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2013); Matt Bryden, ‘The Reinvention of Al-Shabaab: A Strategy of Choice