From the Publisher

By Robert L. Miller

Since ancient times, human beings have been fascinated by elephants. From the powerful woolly mammoths that dominate prehistoric cave paintings to the soulful Babar of children's stories, these partisans of the order Proboscidea have captivated us with their gentleness and awed us with their strength. Unfortunately for the elephant, however, the world's affection for ivory is almost as ancient and as great. Today the voracious appetite for the tusks of African elephants -- particularly in the Far East -- threatens to eradicate this noble species. TIME correspondent Ted Gup chronicles the danger in this week's cover story on the ivory trail.

An investigative reporter who covered the Iran-contra and Pentagon procurement scandals, Gup logged 35,000 miles in ten weeks traveling around the globe. He began toward the end of the ivory trail, in Tokyo and Hong Kong, where more than 400 tons of ivory were imported last year. Visiting warehouses where tusks were stacked to the ceiling, "I got to see the ivory the way the Far East sees ivory -- divorced from the animal and remote from the killing," Gup says. "Most of the consumers are so far from the source that they cannot imagine its origin in axes and blood. As I went back toward Africa, the horror hit me."

Accompanied by photographer William Campbell, Gup saw his first elephant in the wild in Kenya's Tsavo National Park. "We were lying on our bellies near a water hole, waiting, when suddenly there they were -- a herd of seven elephants approaching the water hole. The little ones were frolicking and gamboling about, some of them locking their tusks and pressing their heads against each other in a kind of reverse tug-of-war. A pretty good-size bull noticed us. His ears flared in alarm, and he looked very menacing." Gup and Campbell tensed, but the bull did not charge them.

Gup says he was won over by the animals. "I wish the whole world could see the elephants the way I saw them," Gup says. "Then they would understand that ivory is not jade; it's not a mineral. It's the product of a magnificent animal that has suffered tremendously so that people can wear something gleaming around their necks."