“Africa’s Donkeys Are Coveted by China. Can the Continent Protect Them?” 26 February 2024

For years, Chinese companies and their contractors have been slaughtering millions of donkeys across Africa, coveting gelatin from the animals’ hides that is processed into traditional medicines, popular sweets and beauty products in China. But a growing demand for the gelatin has decimated donkey populations at such alarming rates in African countries that governments are now moving to put a brake on the mostly unregulated trade.

The African Union, a body that encompasses the continent’s 55 states, adopted a continentwide ban on donkey skin exports this month in the hope that stocks will recover...

“A means of survival in Africa fuels the demand for luxury products from the middle class in China,” said Emmanuel Sarr, who heads the West Africa regional office of Brooke, “This cannot continue.”...

China is the main trading partner for many African countries. But in recent years its companies have been increasingly criticized for depleting the continent’s natural resources, from minerals to fish and now donkey skins, a censure once largely aimed at Western countries. ...

Some Chinese companies or local intermediaries buy and slaughter donkeys legally, but government officials have also dismantled clandestine slaughterhouses. Rural communities in some African countries have also reported increasing cases of donkey theft, although there is no estimate of how widespread illegal trafficking has been...

...it is unclear yet how the continentwide ban might help save donkeys: African states now have to implement the ban through national legislation, a process that will take years. And national law enforcement agencies may not have the resources or will to tackle the illegal trafficking of donkey pelts...