According to Mokaba, the money was ostensibly for staff training but was actually spent on gathering data on ivory poaching across Africa that IFAW will employ in their proposed smear campaign. Ministers were unaware of the donation and it has become an embarrassment to them. Such rhetoric is unusual for a police unit and what is more, given the time spent gathering evidence, the report is thin on detail. While the most obvious conclusion of this report is that poaching is reasonably well under control, it is expected by insiders that the most lurid incidents have been held back from publication and will be presented by IFAW prior to the ivory trade to Japan. There is no doubt that re-opening trade makes monitoring of illegal trades slightly harder.
Farmers kill elephants whenever possible because they trample their crops and destroy villages.
This is the key reason why elephant numbers have declined in places such as Kenya and Tanzania. Nevertheless, the elephant is far from endangered with well over 500,000 animals across Africa. Perversely, the 1989 trade ban allowed poaching to increase in some Southern African countries because funds previously received from ivory sales were no longer available to pay for anti-poaching units. Zimbabwe has done this most effectively and now villagers love their elephants as looking after them brings good returns alongside farming and other rural employment possibilities. Zimbabwean farmers, unlike their northern counterparts, do not turn a blind eye to poaching.