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IUCN science chief on China and Ivory trade

Category: China, Ivory, elephants | Date: Jul 14 2008 | By: baraza

Greetings everyone,

I’m in Chattanooga Tennessee attending the Society for Conservation Biology Meeting (SCB).

Today the plenary speaker was Jeffry McNeely, the IUCN chief scientist, and someone I and all scientists I know, have enormous respect for. In his stunning slide presentation he introduced us to Asia and China where the next SCB meeting will take place next year. He gave a wonderful overview of the region from prehistoric times to today, and raised issues about the great biodiversity in the region, an highlyighted the concerns.

In this post I’m going to focus on the trade issue that he raised since I’m preoccupied with ivory and china .. so Yes he did bring up illegal trade as a major concern for biodiversity. He said and I quote

“Wildlife Trade is a huge problem, most of it is illegal, most of it is not controlled by CITES, most of it is going to China”

So at the end I politely raised my hand thanked him for the great presentation, reminded him about the massive population, fantastic economic growth in China, and reminded him about his statement about illegal trade. I then asked how CITES, which was aware of yet was unable to control illegal trade to China, could endorse China as the sole buyer of the southern African ivory? And, if it goes through at the Standing Committee this week, what were his predictions?

He restated and emphasized that there is basically no control of wildlife trade and that the worst situation was across teh Chinese borders with Laos, Vientam and Myanmar (Burma) but he also said

“When China puts their mind to something they can do anything”.

He used the example of rhino horn trade and said that it had been stamped out. So, his conclusion was

“Maybe there will be a payoff, maybe they will negotiate and China will be allowed to trade on condition that they will have to reign in the illegal trade on these borders”

I nodded but my mind was screaming

“WHAT, WHERE THE HELL IS THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE IN ALL THIS? Shouldn’t they have proven this capability BEFORE they asked for permission to buy the ivory? Since when did CITES start operating on FAITH?”

What do you think? Am I over reacting here?

Is it true that China can do anything it puts it’s mind to? Will giving China ivory be a means to force the country to adopt proper illegal ivory trade controls?

I am going to go back to Jeffrey and continue the conversation so send me your questions and I’ll get them answered!

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4 Responses to “IUCN science chief on China and Ivory trade”

admin, on 14 Jul 2008

I’ve just realised that the president of IUCN is Valli Moosa, … a south African who we fought over the ivory trade issue in 2000 when he was the minister in charge of wildlife. Now the picture is becoming clearer to me, I fear that IUCN is actually infiltrated with wildlife trade people, there is no way that IUCN would advise against trade in ivory with this man at the helm. Valli has done alot of good things for conservation - but he holds a principled position on supporting ivory trade and I recall he had no concern for the backlash that selling SA ivo.ry would have on other countries elephant populations or the illegal trade in general. Sorry folks, this is another sad day for wildlife. You can write to him at president@iucn.org maybe he’ll listen if enough of us shout
Paula

sheryl, washington dc, on 14 Jul 2008

My God, Paula, your comment is positively chilling. If that’s the case, and it does appear so, then WE have to band together to discredit CITES and get them to clean out their closets or disband altogether.

I want to know why China needs this ivory? What are their plans for tons and tons of dead elephant parts? What are they planning to give the world in exchange for the possible extinction of the species? What about their current activities including farming bears for bile, raising tigers on farms for parts, the despicable practices in their “safari” parks, the culling of dogs in Beijing in 2006-07 to make the city “cleaner” for the Olympics, the culling of dogs after the Wenchuan quake, the selling of dog and cat fur to the EU and the U.S. on garments marked as “fake” fur, and the list goes ON AND ON AND ON. That’s just the stuff we know about - I’m sure there’s more we don’t know about.

s.

admin, on 14 Jul 2008

Jeffrey blames all of the concerns about China’s expansion etc on Western consumerism. We can only be sooo polite, seriously, I’m going to hit the next person who says “China can do whatever they put their mind to” … does it automatically mean they don’t care about all the things that you mention Sheryl? Animal welfare, human rights, climate change…. forests, ….!

sheryl, washington dc, on 14 Jul 2008

I’m not sure I understand your question.

s.

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