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Philip Hatcher-Moore | Photojournalist

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20_PEM_TZA_DAR_9120.jpg

Tanzania's White Gold


The greed for ivory is decimating Africa's elephant populations, with thousands of African elephants dying every year at the hands of poachers. Whilst some get caught, corruption means that many others get away, leaving carcasses to litter the national parks and conservancies.

View fullsize  Perhaps a quarter of Africa's elephants live in Tanzania, and estimates reach as high as 36,000 elephants per year are killed for their tusks, worldwide.
View fullsize  Poachers such as Iddi Mbwana are driven by poverty and the possibility of high earnings to foreign buyers
View fullsize  Mloka, a village on the edge of the Selous Game Reserve, is home to many poachers and a major transit point for ivory.
View fullsize  Poachers habitually burn grasslands to provide a better view of elephants in order to kill them for their tusks. "This fire was definitely started by poachers" said a source involved in tackling illegal poaching in Tanzania.
View fullsize  The Selous Game Reserve has seen a massive decrease in its population of elephants over the past decade, largely due to illegal poaching of the animals for their tusks, which fuels the illicit international ivory trade.
View fullsize  Wildlife rangers are responsible for patrolling near 55,000 square kilometres of the Selous reserve - an area larger than the territory of Switzerland. Poaching is rife within the park, marked by its proximity to the port city of Dar es-Salaam.
View fullsize  An elephant's skull—the orbits of the skull where tusks are attached in the forefront—lies in the savannah in the Selous Game Reserve in Tanzania.
View fullsize  Sleepers stamped with Chinese characters sit on a railroad carving through the Selous Game Reserve. The railway cuts through the reserve, a sign—according to conservationists in the park—that China's involvement in infrastructure has ulterior motive
View fullsize  Simba Michael, a Wildlife Ranger of 7 years, walks through the Selous Game Reserve near to a railway line that connects the economic hub of Dar es-Salaam with neighbouring Zambia.
View fullsize  An elephant walks through the edge of Lake Manze in the Selous Game Reserve. Safari guides here say it is increasingly difficult to find elephants, particularly larger bulls.
View fullsize  Jugi ("Judge" in Kiswahili) is an informant to conservationists tackling the illegal ivory poaching in Tanzania.
View fullsize  The "Big Power Arts Group", acting as Wildlife Rangers, charge during a reenactment of a film they are producing, entitled "Who is to blame?" The film explores the illegal poaching of animals stemming from Mloka, a village notorious for elephant poa
View fullsize  An elephant walks along a forest road on the outskirts of Mloka, near to the edge of the Selous Game Reserve. Locals in Mloka say that many of the elephants have disappeared from the area surrounded the village due to high rates of poaching.
View fullsize  Wildlife ranger Simba Michael, walks holding his AK-47 semi-automatic rifle through the Selous Game Reserve.
View fullsize  The Mwenge market in Dar es-Salaam is home to stalls selling ivory.  The shops sells various sculptures, paintings and jewellery to tourists, but also harbour an illicit market in illegal ivory.
View fullsize  A journalist holds a piece of ivory in a small curio shop for tourists in the Mwenge Market. The owner of the shop produced the end of one elephant's tusk, weighing around 1-1.5kg which he was prepared to sell for 400,000 Tanzanian Shillings (approx
View fullsize  An advertisement for flights to Guangzhou by Kenya Airways stands in the streets of Dar es-Salaam. Guangzhou is China’s main ivory-carving-and-trading center.
View fullsize  A view over the port of Dar es-Salaam, Tanzania's economic hub, as seen from the restaurant of a hotel. The port—to which access is strongly limited—is a major hub for illegal ivory leaving the country to far-eastern markets.
View fullsize  An employee of the Wildlife Division in the Tanzanian Ministry for Natural Resources and Tourism pulls back a tarpaulin covering a seizure of 347 tusks outside the Tanzanian ivory warehouse in Dar es-Salaam.
View fullsize  A pile of ivory from a seizure of 347 tusks, weighing 1049kg, seized from a house on the outskirts of Dar es-Salaam, Tanzania's economic hub. Eight men were arrested for questioning.

Read more about Tanzania's ivory poaching in the blog →

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All work copyright © Philip Hatcher-Moore unless otherwise stated.

No reproduction of images is permitted without prior consent.

  • Currently in North Wales
    Nov 30, 2021, 2:22 PM

Based in Wales, UK
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