It is an interesting development that we human beings have become such a dominant force on this planet that nearly all of the earth’s plant and animal matter are dependent on our actions if they are to continue existing as they have for millennia.
As we touched on in our article on the importance of our great national parks, it is a shame that the natural world almost needs a value prescribed to it in order for us to protect it. That is, however, unfortunately the case. If a certain spot, home to plants, animals and behavioural patterns unique to it, cannot prove its value as a wild space, it is in danger of being repurposed.
That repurposing inevitably comes at the detriment to all that calls the formerly wild space its home.
For many of our readers, there is no need to ascribe value to the life of an elephant. That it lives justifies its deserving of that life. There are, however, equally enthusiastically endorsed arguments in favour of humanity’s development at the expense of wild spaces, and the animals that live in them.
Those that argue for human expansion into areas where presently wild animals, such as the African elephant, exist, will occasionally promote human well-being, improved access to tillable land and better infrastructure over the conservation of wild spaces. These are good arguments, humanitarian arguments, that deserve recognition.
However, in this article, we will demonstrate four ways that the protection of elephant and their organic patterns of behaviour are good for humanity and it’s progression.
Elephants fight climate change
Elephants are what is considered a key-stone species. That means that the well-running, natural function of the habitat they share with other species is dependent on an elephant’s presence within that habitat.
Elephant are considered essential to the maintenance of the savannah grasslands that have become the iconic backdrop to any safari photograph of an African elephant. Elephant, and other grazers, parade the grasslands, travelling vast distances in their roaming, and, all the while, they strip the savannah of small shrubs.
Often these small shrubs are acacia saplings which, if left to mature, would dominate the landscape. In the elephant’s tending to the grassland, it maintains one of the earth’s most important carbon sinks.
You can read in greater detail about how grasslands sequester carbon from the atmosphere by clicking through on this link. For now, however, suffice it to say that grasslands pull carbon out of the atmosphere and put it into the soil, where it is kept captured for far longer than, say, carbon captured in living trees.
Elephants promote biodiversity
This is, perhaps, more of a sub-clause to the above point. But it is still worth making. The reason why is well summarised on the European Commission’s website entry on the environment.
Why? Well, because healthy ecosystems are more robust. They work as a system and effective systems are less susceptible to the effects of change. Diverse, intricately-designed, healthy ecosystems often have fail-safes designed into them. Parasites, insects or animals will bring down dead trees in Alaska, for example, reducing the danger of wide-reaching forest fires in the summertime.
That’s just one example of how a well-balanced, biodiverse ecosystem is essential to our adapting to and minimising the effects of climate change. And the conservation of elephant is incredibly important in protecting biodiversity.
They protect grasslands, as has been stated. This maintains the existence of all who live on it, including the presently arriving Great Migration of wildebeest in the Serengeti ecosystem. But, also, through the conservation of these huge animals and their migratory routes, we also protect all the smaller animals that live on those routes.
The conservation of elephant is essential to the promotion of biodiversity.
Protecting elephant increases the security of neighbouring human populations
Undermining the illegal trade in wildlife has brought a measure of security to populations of peoples that live around animals. Effective ranger and wildlife service forces patrol areas where wildlife roam, are trained in the use of force and, on occasion, are also trained as police reservists.
According to the CEO of Conservation International, establishing rangers as protectors of local communities, from both wildlife and raiding bands of illegal hunters, has brought increased security to local populations.
Elephants promote economic productivity
Photographic tourism is such an incredible tool for promoting prosperity. What sells, if one is to consider this a product, is the fact that certain elements of life are left the same. The existence of elephant in their natural habitat brings money only at the expense of establishing places to stay for tourists and ensuring that there is infrastructure enough for those people to travel about.
According to one study, the financial value of an elephant over the course of its lifetime is 1.6 million dollars.
The spread of this money, while not equal, can be wide-reaching. In Kenya’s safari tourism areas, money is spent on park fees, as accommodation fees (some of which goes to local community members), in the purchasing of food from local markets, fuel from local gas stations, in the buying of souvenirs and in the promoting of local services (mechanics, hardware suppliers, etc.)
So, there you have it. Four ways that an elephant helps human beings. Add that into your conservation vs. development argument next time it happens.