Africa’s Donkeys, Coveted in China And Disappearing
DAKAR, Senegal — For years, Chinese companies and contractors have been slaughtering millions of donkeys in Africa, coveting gelatin from the animals’ hides that is processed into medicines, sweets and beauty products. But the practice has decimated donkey populations at alarming rates.
The African Union, encompassing the continent’s 55 states, adopted a continentwide ban on donkey skin exports in February in the hope that stocks will recover.
Rural households across Africa rely on donkeys for transportation and agriculture.
“A means of survival in Africa fuels the demand for luxury products from the middle class in China,” said Emmanuel Sarr, of Brooke, an organization based in London that works to protect donkeys and horses. “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.
“This trade is undermining the mutual development talks between China and African countries,” said Lauren Johnston, an expert on China-Africa relations at the University of Sydney.
Some Chinese companies or local intermediaries buy and slaughter donkeys legally, but officials have dismantled clandestine slaughterhouses. Rural communities have also reported cases of donkey theft.
China’s donkey skin trade is the key component of a multibillion-dollar industry for what the Chinese call ejiao, or donkey gelatin. It is a traditional medicine recognized by China’s health authorities, but whose actual benefits remain debated among doctors and researchers in China.
China’s ejiao industry consumes between four million and six million donkey hides every year — about 10 percent of the world’s donkey population, according to estimates by the Donkey Sanctuary. China used to source ejiao from Chinese donkeys, but its herd plummeted from more than nine million in 2000 to just over 1.7 million in 2022. So over the past decade China turned to Africa, home to 60 percent of the world’s donkeys, according to the United Nations.
Donkeys are highly resistant to harsh climate conditions and can carry heavy loads for a sustained period, making them a prized resource in Africa. But they are slow to breed.
The decline has been sharp. Kenya’s donkey population declined by half from 2009 to 2019, according to research by Brooke. A third of Botswana’s donkeys have disappeared.
Beijing has been quiet about the African Union’s ban. Neither China’s mission to the African Union nor its Ministry of Commerce responded to requests for comment.
Some countries already have nationwide bans, but porous borders and lax enforcement of fines have made it difficult to stem the trade. In West Africa, donkeys are being trafficked from landlocked countries before they are slaughtered in gruesome conditions near the sea.
“Traffickers look for exit ways, like ports, which we must fight to keep closed,” said Vessaly Kallo, the head of veterinary services in Ivory Coast.
Some governments have also faced pressure from farmers who raise donkeys and reap a profit from the trade.
It is unclear how the continentwide ban might help: African states must implement the ban through national legislation, which will take years. And national law enforcement agencies may not have the resources to tackle illegal trafficking.
Some countries, like Eritrea and South Africa, had long been reluctant to embrace a ban, arguing they had the right to decide how to use their natural resources, said Mwenda Mbaka, a member of the African Union’s body for animal resources.
Last September, Dr. Mbaka took dozens of African diplomats on a retreat in Kenya. He showed them images of donkeys illegally slaughtered and emphasized that without donkeys, some of the heavy work they do would likely fall on children or women.
It did not take long to convince his audience, Dr. Mbaka said. “Once they saw the evidence, they were on board.”
Rural areas in Africa rely on donkeys for transportation and agriculture, but gelatin in their hide is valuable in China. A Kenyan slaughterhouse, left. An Ethiopian shepherd, above.