Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

The recent cyanide poisoning of elephants in Zimbabwe has sparked both horror and revulsion across the globe.

In addition to the deaths of hundreds of elephants, a vast number of other animals, ranging from lions to vultures have also been killed, by either drinking from the poisoned water or feeding on the contaminated flesh of other animals that had been killed by the cyanide poisoning.

The death toll is staggering in and of itself, and it could lead to long-term damage to the local ecosystem centered in the Hwange National Park, where the poisonings took place.

Should this type of poaching become common, it could reduce huge swaths of Africa to lifeless desert, as animals continue to be poisoned long after the poachers have left.

But while the obvious effects occur at the hands of poorly paid individuals, the motivation for the crime comes from the high prices that illegal ivory can command.

In most cases, the poachers themselves obtain only a fraction of what illegal ivory is sold for on the black market, a state of affairs very similar to the economic underpinnings of the drug trade.

Unfortunately, plans to regulate or eliminate the ivory trade run aground upon the political, social and financial instability of some African nations.

Economic chaos can create a vast number of poverty-stricken families who must seek out every avenue to obtain money for the necessities of life. To these individuals, selling ivory is no more than a way to avoid starvation for another year.

The chronic underfunding of park rangers has resulted in them being unable to successfully police nature reserves such as the Hwange National Park.

This is coupled with the willingness of many poachers to kill rangers who interfere in their work. Demands for harsher sentences for poachers are likely to have the same lack of success in stopping poaching as harsher laws in the US have at curbing the use of drugs.

As with the drug trade, real answers are long-term in nature. Increased attention must be paid to the higher-level echelons in the illegal ivory trade. Breaking up the sophisticated networks that get illegal African ivory from the poacher to the end purchaser may be more successful at disrupting the ivory trade than arresting any number of poor villagers. Without a source of payment for ivory, there would be no poaching.

But far more importantly, poaching is a symptom of a disease. Poverty-stricken villagers living in nations polluted by corruption often do not have the luxury of looking at the long-term costs of destroying the elephant population.

While enforcement can help reduce the amount of poaching, the only way to eliminate poaching in Africa is to eliminate the underlying economic and social factors that make such a course of action necessary for so many individuals.

Investment in Africa as a way to help develop a prosperous economic state, even in those nations that are currently suffering severe poverty, is not as glamorous as loud demands that poaching stop, but it is likely to be more effective in the long run.

Ultimately, prosperity will not simply enable potential poachers to find other sources of income, but it will give them the freedom to see their natural treasures as a long-term investment.

And while it is likely that the illegal ivory trade will always be able to find individuals who are willing to engage in poaching, a more prosperous nation will be able to adequately fund police services tasked with suppressing this trade.

As part of a trade fueled by poverty, eliminating ivory poaching will be a long and difficult process. However, by focusing on these underlying causes, rather than pursuing any number of ultimately futile quick fixes, it may be possible to use this tragedy to benefit the African people and elephants alike.

The author is a freelance writer based in Corona, California. charlesgray109@gmail.com