King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort during the Garden Party at Buckingham Palace ahead of the coronation of the King Charles III and the Queen Consort at Buckingham Palace, on May 3, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Yui Mok - WPA Pool/Getty Images)
As King Charles III’s 6 May coronation draws closer, Southern African communities have joined Botswana Chieftainess Rebecca Banika and US-based ivory specialist Godfrey Harris in supporting Buckingham Palace’s decision for Queen Camilla to carry a historic ivory sceptre during the ceremony.
Banika and Harris denounced anti-ivory groups as being “out-of-touch with the undeniable fact that ivory has historical and cultural importance to the world — and a central place in the coronation of a British royal couple”.
“We find the demand by the animal rights groups that Queen Camilla should not use a historic ivory rod totally unreasonable,” said the chairperson of the Southern Africa Community Leaders Network (CLN), Rodgers Lubilo, who was educated at a wildlife-revenue-built secondary school in South Luangwa, Zambia.
“Our own chiefs use ivory and other animal parts such as tails and skins as symbols of the greatness and richness of African culture and their role in preserving it.”
In an interview, Harris, the managing director of the Los Angeles-based Ivory Education Institute, who was born in England and later migrated to the US, said: “I hope everyone watches the coronation to see for themselves whether Charles and Camilla honour 250 years of royal history and she carries the royal sceptre as a symbol of her office as queen consort.”
He added, “Many art connoisseurs, antique experts and cultural historians were upset when a little-known vegan group demanded that the sceptre be left out of the coronation ceremony in order to ‘protect’ elephants in Africa’s range states. They are thankful that King Charles III, Queen Camilla and the royal household have rejected their publicity-seeking plea.”
In an article published last week in the British newspaper, The Telegraph, Cape Town-based journalist Ben Farmer wrote, “Buckingham Palace has defended the use of the three-foot long rod, which represents the Holy Spirit, saying it was inevitable that a large historic collection like the Crown Jewels would contain ivory.”
Farmer continued: “The sceptre was made by the royal goldsmith Sir Robert Vyner for Mary of Modena when she was crowned alongside her husband, James II, in 1685 and has been used to crown every queen consort since.”
Harris, who manages the Ivory Education Institute, has just been given the Best of Brentwood Award for Public Service in 2023.
In acknowledging the importance of the award, Harris commented that the clueless, single-minded anti-ivory “crowd” would disdain the symbolism of history during the coronation “to try to make a hollow political point.” He added that famed Jamaican activist, Marcus Garvey, got it exactly right when he wrote, “People without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots”.
Reacting to an article published in The Daily Mail last week, explaining Banika’s strong support for Queen Camilla’s decision to carry the ivory rod, some of the British paper’s readers supported Camilla’s position while others opposed it.
“There is no reason not to use a beautiful piece made of ivory,” said Clarity, A, of Richmond. “The elephant that provided it has been dead for centuries. You can’t bring it back and give the tusk back to the elephant. It would be wasteful not to use it.”
One of the protestors, Chooselovenothate of Manchester said that to parade through the streets adorned in the dead tusks of murdered elephants takes a certain kind of person to be okay with that.
Elsewhere, a resident of Botswana’s wildlife-rich Ngamiland District and also the director the Ngamiland’s Council of NGOs, Siyoka Simasiku, said that the animal rights groups were concerned that Queen Camilla’s holding an ivory rod at King Charles III’s coronation would signal support of ivory use and trade.
“In SADC countries, the ivory of elephants that die of natural causes is a symbol and source of our community’s livelihood. The anti-ivory groups are afraid that this will communicate the wrong signal [such as the use of wildlife hunting trophies] at a time when the House of Lords is set to review the British parliamentarians’ vote to ban the import of hunting trophies,” said Simasiku.
Lubilo said that the CLN favours the import of hunting trophies just as it “views the animals rights groups’ lobby to pressure Queen Camilla into refusing to carry the ivory rod as hard evidence that they are totally out-of-touch with the reality that ivory is a vital economic resource with important historical as well as cultural value”.
He noted that for many years the animal rights groups have influenced the member countries of CITES, the UN agency that regulates international trade in endangered fauna and flora species. These groups influence the majority of CITES members to vote against proposals from elephant-overpopulated countries to trade in large quantities of stockpiled ivory, unlocking the value of their wildlife through legal and sustainable ivory trade.
“The animal rights groups’ protest against Queen Camilla’s carrying of the ivory rod is unacceptable and should be dismissed with the contempt it deserves,” said Lubilo.
“We wish King Charles III well, during his coronation and coming reign and we look forward to having a conversation in the future with the royal family regarding the workable conservation of all wild species.”
Emmanuel Koro is a Johannesburg-based international award-winning environmental journalist who writes independently on environmental and developmental issues in Africa.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Mail & Guardian.