Baraza

News from the WildlifeDirect team

Support WildlifeDirect:
buy branded merchandise

Will selling wildlife save them?

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jul 04 2008 | By: admin

I get so mad when I hear countries, organizations and individuals saying that the solution for wildlife protection is to just make money from it. Ok the value of wildlife is immense - in fact the illegal trade in wildlife is apparently worth many billions and is second only to the illegal trade in arms. So if legalizing wildlife trade would lead to it’s protection …then should we legalize the trade in weapons? We are such hypocrites.

Top of my venting list today Namibia. According to a news article here  Namibia’s state-owned national game reserves plan to auction and export black rhinos and buffalo to South Africa and Botswana to raise funds for conservation and community development. The Ministry of Environment and Tourism has authorized the auction of eight black rhinos and 40 buffalos on July 25 in a biennial sale of rare animals, Mark Jago, an official at the ministry, said in an interview from the Namibian capital of Windhoek today. And it’s totally legal - the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species allows Namibia to export the animals.

What do you think, will selling rhino’s will lead to their preservation ?

Share This

Tags: , , ,

8 Responses to “Will selling wildlife save them?”

sheryl, washington dc, on 04 Jul 2008

I swear, CITES is the devil.

s.

sheryl, washington dc, on 04 Jul 2008

Selling rhinos won’t save them, it’ll create a market for them and that will lead to farming. I think we can look to China to see how well farming wildlife works for the wildlife.

s.

  Animals | wildlife — Recycle Email, on 04 Jul 2008

[…] Will selling wildlife save them? By admin I get so mad when I hear countries, organizations and individuals saying that the solution for wildlife protection is to just make money from it. Ok the value of wildlife is immense - in fact he illegal trade in wildlife is apparently … Baraza - http://baraza.wildlifedirect.org […]

Jan - Boston, on 04 Jul 2008

I would be surprised if any of those animals are alive in five years. They will likely somehow find a way to the hunting blocks and be shot by weathy Americans and Europeans who will pay a large sum to do so.

I agree with Sheryl about CITES. Wildlife needs a better alternative, one that truly cares about the wildlife.

Paula, on 04 Jul 2008

Too true both of you. Did you know that CITES was established to protect endangered species? The Convention was actually written originally by Kenya! I worked on CITES issues particularly elephant ivory and rhino trade issues for several years. The our greatest challenge was the Secretariat - it comprised people who seemed to have no sympathy for wildlife or interest in conservation. They changed the articles of the convention so that it has become a mechanism to facilitate trade in endangered species! It makes me sick. We need to disband CITES and find a different mechanism for saving endangered species.

sheryl, washington dc, on 05 Jul 2008

In just the couple of years I’ve been volunteering at the zoo, CITES has made some mind-boggling decisions _against_ wildlife. You’re right, Paula, they should be disbanded and replaced. They suck.

Christine C. told me the other day that she found ivory and hippo leather for sale on Ebay. I know that’s illegal for sale in the U.S. Didn’t we find ivory on Ebay once before and wrote to them and got it removed? Anyone have time to dig up all the ivory and hippo parts listings on Ebay so we can challenge them?

s.

Jan - Boston, on 05 Jul 2008

Sheryl - several years ago I was reporting ivory on eBay, particularly carvings and tusks coming directly from China. eBay now gets around it by stating only ivory sold within the US can be sold. Thus the Chinese can find a “friend” living in the US and have it shipped from here. Also I’ve notice a huge increase in mammoth, bone, whale and wart hog carvings and I suspect a lot of that is just a way of getting around the ivory sales. Who could prove it wasn’t from elephants unless it was DNA tested? They allow “pre-ban” ivory sales. Sales of ivory since the ban is supposed to be accompanied by a US Fish & Wildlife certificate. It is truly frustrating getting ALL ivory banned. I know IFAW is working with eBay now in an attempt to get it all off the market. Let us pray they are successful.

sheryl, washington dc, on 05 Jul 2008

Hi Jan,

I looked up the IFAW/Ebay venture and IFAW just posted last month about it: “Thursday, June 05, 2008
(Yarmouth Port, MA.) June 5, 2008 — Despite eBay Inc.’s announcement exactly one year ago today of a global ban on all international trade in elephant ivory, investigators with IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare; http://www.ifaw.org) have found that auctions of illegal or potentially illegal ivory have skyrocketed on eBay in the U.S. Further, eBay Canada faces persistent challenges as U.S.-based sellers of ivory list their contraband on the Canadian site. This increase in North American eBay ivory auctions is in stark contrast to a large reduction of such activity in some foreign countries where eBay affiliates have severely restricted or banned the trade in ivory completely.”

There’s more about the ban and Ebay and all the other countries that have banned the sale of ivory here: http://www.ifaw.org/ifaw/general/default.aspx?oid=229546

Ebay is also being sued by a couple of high-end designers for selling fakes on their site. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with those lawsuits.

s.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS

Leave a Reply