Category: Africa, Ivory, Kenya, Trade, elephants, poaching, wildlife trade | Date: Oct 05 2009 | By: Maina

We could be headed back to the ‘dark ages’ of African elephant poaching going by the recent spate of ivory seizures in the continent. Wildlife enthusiasts will remember the horrible days back in the 1980s when the Kenyan elephant population was brought down to its knees by the large scale poaching that was also affecting most of the range states for the African Elephant (Loxodonta africana). Those days may well be back.

A few days ago, the Kenya Wildlife Service seized a large cache of illegal ivory at Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. Capital FM of Nairobi report in their website that “Police and Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) personnel on Wednesday seized 61 tusks of raw ivory weighing 532 Kilograms (1,172 pounds) at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA).”The large haul is believed to have been headed to Bangkok, Thailand, through Addis Abab, Ethiopia. KWS Director Julius Kipng’etich reports that:

“The unaccompanied luggage was to be air-freighted to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on the way to Bangkok, Thailand,” he said adding that the ivory had been falsely declared as “POLISHING BENCH” in the Airway Bill and was packed in four boxes.

As luck would have it, the KWS also received reports from Ethiopian Airlines that another larger consignment - 637 kg (1,404 pounds) - of similarly disguised ivory had been intercepted in the capital Addis Ababa two days earlier. “This consignment had also originated from JKIA destined to Bangkok via Addis Ababa by the same consignee,” said Kipng’etich.

The total of 1,169 kg (2,577 pounds) of ivory seized is suspected to be from Kenyan elephants, which would then prove that there is indeed a rise in elephant poaching. According to KWS data, this year, 145 elephants have been killed illegally. This compared to the 47 reported illegally killed elephants in the last two years, is indeed a cause for panic. The rise in number of illegally killed elephants is alarming!

The story of the tough times for elephants doesn’t end at the horn of Africa. On October 1, the same day that the KWS seized ivory in Nairobi, five suspects are reported to have been arraigned in a Harare, Zimbabwe court charged with possession of 30,8 kilograms of ivory worth more than $4 500 (American dollars, not Zimbabwean).

These outlaws had, withing their residence, a high caliber rifle used to kill elephants - .303! The Harare court remanded them out of custody, so they’ll be staying in their residence, probably shoot a few more elephants with another .303 rifle then go back to court on the appointed date for the hearing of the current case.

In Central Africa Republic, the French news agency, AFP, reports that “Police detained two major ivory traffickers in the Central African Republic as a part of a joint operation with animal rights activists”. So the cancer is spreading. According to the AFP, this is the first arrest of this kind in this central African state since they instituted a law against wildlife trade in some 30 years ago. This lot of thugs are said to have their own large stash of illegal ivory.

One of the suspects had 157 ivory objects weighing more than 200 kilogrammes (440 pounds). Unfortunately, these crooks will only get 1-year jail terms each should they be found guilty, which is a ridiculously soft punishment for someone who is probably responsible for the death of tens of elephants, if not hundreds.

Experts say some 38,000 African elephants are killed each year for their tusks. Most believe that the upsurge in poaching in recent months is due to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna (CITES) decision to allow the southern African states of Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe(!) to sell their ivory stockpile to the highest bidder in China and Japan. It is believed this prompted a spike in the illegal market for ivory, which, needless to say, is responsible for the upsurge in poaching.

I personally blame CITES for the mess that is ivory poaching. It is difficult and expensive to trace the origin of ivory, especially after it has been worked. What logic did they use to agree to the one-off auction of ivory?

Unless the illegal trade in ivory is completely stumped out, nobody should sell an ounce (or a milligram) of this item. In my opinion, there should not be any ivory trade at all, whether it is properly controlled or not.

Besides, what do humans need ivory for? If humans truly needed ivory, then God (or evolution) would have equipped them with a fine long pair each.

Tags: Africa, China, CITES, elephant, Ivory, KWS, poaching, wildlife

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Category: Africa, Trade | Date: Mar 26 2009 | By: admin

When Nimu and Volker reported a dugong caught in a net at the south coast of Kenya, we thought it was a one off occurance. But now the true damage caused by nets has been revealed in this shocking story about how US aid is destroying marine life in Kenya has gone totally viral on the internet

“In 2003, USAID began a four-year project worth $575,000 to improve the lives of coastal communities. It worked on a project with a Kenyan government agency that included providing freezers for the fishermen to store their catch, along with boats and nets.

But the plastic nets are destroying the very ecosystems that the fishermen depend on and the tourists come to see, said Daniel Floren, who runs a local diving school.

Officials, experts and even the fishermen themselves acknowledge the nets are killing wildlife and coral.

“Without the reefs, there will be no diving. If we have nothing to show, I’ll have to shut up shop,” Floren said.

The aim of the U.S. project was to help lift local people out of poverty, said Robert Buzzard, a USAID official involved in the initiative. But there were no studies to show how the kind of equipment supplied might affect the marine life”.

I find this story highly disturbing because US aid disown responsibility for conducting an environmental impact assessment before issuing out these nets. I hope that the relevant government authorities take swift action

If you would like to help us save Kenya’s marine life, support the Whale Shark project.

Tags: dugong, fishing, Kenya, marine, Mombasa, Turtles, whale sharks, wildlifedirect

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Category: Africa, Ivory, Trade, elephants, enforcement, wildlife trade | Date: Mar 26 2009 | By: admin

Hello friends,

It’s Paula here. Things seem to be getting worse and worse on the ivory and elephant killing front. One ton of ivory has been seized in Bangkok, it’ is said to have come from Uganda. Of course this, like the 6 tons of ivory from Tanzania seized in Vietnam, is unlikely to be of Ugandan (or Tanzanian) origin.

We suspect that this ivory comes from DR Congo where the elephant population has crashed from 100,000 individuals 50 yeas ago to fewer than 20,000 today. That’s death rate of 1,600 elephants per year. Amazing that none of the usual organizations, WWF, AWF, CITES and IUCN seem to be concerned.

The original article is below but is so full of errors that I’ve highlighted them in bold

Ugandan ivory seized in Thailand

New Vision

24th March, 2009

A TONNE of Ugandan ivory has been impounded in Bangkok, Thailand, the

biggest seizure of illegal animal products from the country in recent times.

The Police questioned two Ugandan Entebbe-based clearing officials over

the contraband valued at $300,000 (sh609m). The suspected exporter, Lois

Smith, believed to be a Congolese, is on the run, reports Gerald Tenywa.

Officially ivory is worth between $100 - $150 / kg. On the blackmarket surprisingly it is ten times this value in Vietnam.

Samuel Mukiibi of Palm Agencies, a clearing and forwarding company and

Ronald Sabwe of Entebbe Handling Services (ENHAS) allegedly cleared the

cargo on January 13.

Catherine Kusemererwa, the head of the Entebbe Airport Police, said the

cargo was handled by ENHAS. But the company’s chief, Georges Tytens,

refused to comment.

The last time such a huge consignment of ivory was seized was in 2002 in

China. It was from the DR Congo transited through Uganda and Kenya. In

June 2001, 213kg of ivory was impounded at Entebbe. Nobody was arrested

and the destination of the contraband was not known.

Asked about the Thai contraband, the Civil Aviation Authority denied

responsibility for clearing the shipment. Spokesperson Ignie Igundura

said it was the duty of the Uganda Revenue Authority.

The tax body’s spokesperson Paul Kyeyune expressed ignorance about the

issue. “Do you have any information?” he asked.

Kusemererwa said the case had been under investigation for two months

and that the key suspects were still at large.

Moses Mapesa, the head of the Uganda Wildlife Authority, condemned the

trade in ivory. “We want the Police to address the menace and the

culprits apprehended,” he said.

Amazing how everyone is passing the buck !!!

He said over 10 elephants could have been killed to get the tonne of

ivory, which he suspected came from the DR Congo.

Mapesa is wrong here - the average ivory per elephant is 10 - 20 kg. Therefore, one ton of ivory represents 50 - 100 elephants - we need to know the number of pieces of ivory. Uganda has very few elephants remaining.

He said it was impossible to kill such numbers of elephants in Uganda’s

protected areas without being detected.

Elephants are an endangered species that will become extinct if nothing

is done to control trade in trophies from their bodies.

The trade was banned under the Convention on International Trade in

Endangered Species after poachers reduced elephant population in Africa

from 1.3 million in 1980 to just 600,000 in 1989.

However, the ban was undermined when the convention allowed South Africa

and Zimbabwe to export ivory, citing an elephant population explosion in

the region. Elephants tusks are sold to the wealthy as ornaments.

A kilogramme goes for $300 (sh609,000) in China and the Far East, the

biggest destinations. It goes for $1,800 in Vietnam

Most illegal ivory in Uganda is said to come from Congo and the Sudan,

although the trade is spreading into Uganda.

Regional wildlife agencies and the International Police last November

launched an operation in Central, West and East African countries.

They seized 30kg of ivory in Ishasha, Kampala and Anaka. The Ishasha

ivory is believed to have come from the Congolese Vicuña National Park.

Congo Vicuña National Park???? I think they mean Virunga!

Article at the following link:

http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/12/675746

Tags: Bangkok, CITES, illegal trade, INTERPOL, Ivory, LATF, Thailand, Uganda, Virunga, wildlifedirect

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Category: Africa, Ivory, Trade, elephants, wildlife trade | Date: Mar 26 2009 | By: admin

We reported on this seizure and the surprising lack of concern by Tanzania that Vietnam was about to auction seized ivory that was smuggled from Tanzania. Now Tanzania seems to have woken up …lets hope we find out what is really going on here

Saga of the elephant tusks smuggled from Tanzania to Vietnam: Govt finally takes action

ThisDay

March 25 2009

TANZANIA has set the ball rolling for a formal investigation into the

recently reported episode whereby just over six tonnes of elephant tusks

said to have been smuggled out of the country, have now been seized by

Vietnamese customs officials and set up for auction in that country.

According to the Director of Wildlife at the Ministry of Tourism and

Natural Resources, Erasmus Tarimo, official feelers have been extended

to determine whether an international poaching network may have been

behind the alleged smuggling of the jumbo tusks.

The international police network (Interpol), Convention on International

Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), and the anti-poaching Lusaka

Agreement Task Force (LATF) office in Nairobi, Kenya have all been

contacted and requested to help, Tarimo said.

This represents a U-turn from the government’s initial stated position

of ’complete unawareness’ about the whole situation, even as authorities

in Vietnam announced their own plans to put the tusks, valued at $29.41m

(approx.40bn/-), up for auction.

If the Vietnamese government should actually go ahead and implement such

a plan at this stage of the saga, Tanzania as a nation would surely

stand to lose billions of shillings.

Customs officials at Vietnam’s Hai Phong Port were earlier this month

reported to have discovered a total of 6,232 kilogrammes of elephant

tusks originating from Tanzania, hidden in hundreds of boxes of plastic

waste inside a container which had been transported from Tanzania

through Malaysia.

There were more than 200 pairs of tusks in the haul, the reports said.

Vietnamese officials are said to have received information about the

consignment when it was initially loaded aboard a ship in Dar es Salaam

in January this year, and had been waiting for the consignee to turn up

at the Hai Phong Port.

The consignee of the shipment was identified through the ship’s waybill

as a local (Vietnamese) company called Phuc Thien Ngan. Hai Phong police

have since been looking for the company’s director Vu Ngoc Tuan, but

reportedly to no avail.

Vietnamese officials described the shipment as ’’the biggest ivory haul

ever in Vietnam,’’ and the Hai Phong customs bureau gave a cash reward

equivalent to $572 to the inspectors who made the discovery.

Early investigations indicated that the container appeared to have been

loaded onto a ship in Dar es Salaam and transported to a port in

Malaysia, before arriving at Hai Phong aboard a Malaysian-flagged vessel.

Vietnamese authorities believe the tusks would have then been

transported to China, either by sea or road.

In a telephone interview with THISDAY yesterday, Tarimo said the

Tanzania chapter of Interpol had since contacted their colleagues in

Vietnam in the wake of the reports.

He said although the Vietnamese Interpol has yet to respond, some

information has started trickling in from CITES, whose representatives

in Vietnam are understood to have seen the container and reported its

markings to indicate that its original point of shipment was indeed the

port of Dar es Salaam.

Tarimo did not disclose the exact date of shipment from Dar es Salaam,

but said further details would be provided in the coming days.

LATF in Nairobi is described as a law enforcement institution which is

also secretariat of the Lusaka Agreement on Cooperative Enforcement

Operations Directed at Illegal Trade in Wild Fauna and Flora. The

parties to the agreement are Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Zambia, Lesotho,

and the Republic of Congo, while Ethiopia, Eritrea, Swaziland and the

Republic of South Africa are also about to become signatories.

International agreements like the Lusaka Agreement and CITES aim at

protecting animal species from being poached illegally and traded

without following prescribed procedures.

Tarimo said any local officials found to have been involved in the

shipment of the jumbo tusks to Vietnam would bear the full brunt of the

nation’s laws, regardless of what happens to the foreign collaborators

’’We will not spare any official involved, whether they are from the

wildlife department right here in the ministry, the Tanzania Revenue

Authority (TRA), or any such institutions,’’ he asserted.

According to international wildlife laws, seized animal trophies have to

be destroyed wherever they are seized, in order to discourage the

smugglers involved.

According to Tarimo, the same international wildlife laws also say that

if such animal trophies are captured having been transported illegally,

they become of ’zero value’. Meaning that this consignment seized in

Vietnam valued at approximately 40bn/-, may now be of little or no value

at all.

’’I am deeply concerned about the elephants that were killed in order

for the tusks to be poached. However, as for the consignment in Vietnam,

it has lost its value from the moment it was seized,’’ he remarked.

Article at the following link:

http://www.thisday.co.tz/News/5505.html

Tags: CITES, illegal trade, INTERPOL, Ivory, ivory seisure, KWS, LATF, Tanzania, vietnam, wildlifedirect

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Category: Ivory, Trade, elephants, enforcement, poaching, wildlife trade | Date: Mar 16 2009 | By: baraza

A massive consignment of ivory from the port of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, is about to be auctioned in Vietnam, but nobody in the Tanzanian authority seems to know anything about it. A senior customs agency official in Hai Phong City, Vu Hoang Duong, said that the illegally-imported elephant tusks from Tanzania may be auctioned after the Vietnamese Institute for Ecology and Natural Resources completes certain tests

The consignment of tusks initially left the port of Dar es Salaam in late January this year, was transported by sea via Malaysia, and finally landed at the Dinh Vu Port in Hai Phong on February 28. The tusks, packed in 114 cardboard boxes labelled recycled plastic totalled 1,244 pieces (6,232 kg). The consignment was seized by customs authorities from a ship anchored at the Hai Phong Port.

Peculiarly, the government in Dar es Salaam has said it is completely unaware of the loss of their ivory, and of the impending auction.

According to one Tanzanian authority wherever animal trophies are illegally exported or imported from one country to another, the consignment is seized, the smuggler(s) arrested, and the consignment is auctioned. According to Ezekiel Maige, The Deputy Minister for Tourism and Natural Resources, revenue earned from the auction is then divided according to any standing agreements between the country where the consignment originated and the country of destination.

That sounds very fishy to me. If this were true it would be the perfect way of moving illegal goods - especially if you are a corrupt government official.  In all my years working on CITES trade issues, I have ever heard of such an arrangement - especially concerning CITES listed species. What I’ve observed is that any animal trophies smuggled from one country being seized in another, are handled according to international law. The disposal of the specimens, animals or trophies are agreed by the two countries. Usually ivory is returned to country of origin or stored in vaults for safe keeping.  It is indeed very strange that Vietnam would auction ivory seized from any country without even informing the relevant authorities of the country of origin.
The saddest part of the story is that Tanzanians are lamenting the loss of billions of Tanzanian shillings through an auction in Vietnam.

Nobody seems to be concerned that this ivory may represents over 600 individual elephants, where they came from, how they died, nor the fate of the people involved in the illicit trade.

Vietnamese authorities are said to have been unable to contact the director of Phuc Thien Ngan company, Vu Ngoc Tuan, who is the registered consignee of the tusks. However, one local newspaper said it interviewed Tuan in his office on Monday this week.According to the newspaper, Tuan said he knew nothing of the tusks, and that he had no business relationship with the sender of the tusks. He said authorities have not been able to contact him because he has been busy in recent days.

It is likely that an international smuggling network is at work here and Vietnam where recent reports of soaring ivory prices is likely to be driving the illegal killings of elephants and illicit ivory trade. Prices in Vietnam were reported to be as high as $1863/kg for small cut pieces and $1500/kg for whole tusks, with carved pieces even higher. The legal trade of ivory last year in Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa attraceted prices on tenth of this!

While the Tanzanian’s may just want the money, it is important that the source of this ivory is identified. Genetic tests can determine if this ivory is coming from Tanzania or elsewhere like DR Congo where elephant populations have crashed from 100,000 to fewer than 20,000 in the last 50 years. In conservation circles Tanzania is known to be notorious for illegal trade in birds, ivory, skins, apes and timber from other countries.

Tags: illegal trade, Ivory, vietnam, wildlifedirect

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Category: Forests, Trade, conservation | Date: Mar 12 2009 | By: baraza

After reading the article about sandalwood exploitation in the Karisia Hills by Helen Dufresne, we have been looking into this issue and it seems as if it’s a monster! Its not only north Kenya but the entire Nort Rift that is at risk of losing these beautiful and valuable trees. Here’s an article published in the Daily Nation this week.

In North Rift, money grows on endangered sandalwood

By CASPER WAITHAKAPosted Tuesday, March 10 2009 at 22:44

The protected sandalwood tree is turning traders into millionaires. The plant is being harvested illegally in Samburu, Pokot, Baringo and other parts of the North Rift.

The cartels involved, including prominent politicians, administration and security officials, have made it almost impossible to bring the illegal trade under control, making extinction of the endangered plant a near certainty.

Hardly a week passes without a truckload of the wood, whose scientific name is Osyris lanceolata, being seized is some part of the country.

There are many other cases that are not reported.  Perhaps with this in mind, Forestry minister Noah Wekesa a few weeks ago advertised a hotline for the public to inform the ministry of illegal exploitation of the tree that is exported for use in the pharmaceutical and perfume industries.

The toll free hotline number 08002212323 will also provide information on the exploitation of other forest products including bush meat, skins, ivory, and contraband trade in wildlife species.

Protected tree

It is a follow up of the ban on sandalwood harvesting imposed by President Kibaki in a gazette notice on April 4, 2007, under the protected tree species law.

Behind the scenes in the battle to save the sandalwood is the Lusaka Agreement Task Force, an organisation charged with law enforcement operations against illegal trade in both animals and plants.
The Task Force says over-exploitation of the sandalwood and other products in the region may lead to a dangerous imbalance in the ecosystem.

Sandalwood is harvested from trees over 30 years old and unfortunately the tree is valuable from the leaves to the roots hence its vulnerability. The crude methods of harvest destroy the plant completely.

In December, key Government departments in Kajiado district clashed over a lorry impounded at Namanga border on November 26 while transporting 40 tonnes of sandalwood worth Sh40 million to Tanzania.

Area Police, Kenya Wildlife Service and Forest service personnel failed to agree on where the trailer should be kept. It ended up at the KWS staff quarters following pressure from KWS and forest officials.

Sources said the KWS officials did not trust the police on grounds that they would be compromised.

The intriguing thing was that both containers had two padlocks one from the police and another from the KWS officials. This shows mistrust in each others capacity to keep the containers safe.

However Humphrey Wanzala, who was then area police boss at the time, had a different story saying that the lorry was at the KWS quarters because the officials were suspecting that there were other wildlife trophies besides sandalwood.

He denied that there was mistrust saying, “We are together in this as we work for the same Government. We shall pursue this matter to the very end.”

The KWS official, Mr Timothy Kitonyi, said the only issue was that the suspects claimed they harvested the sandalwood in Mbale, Uganda, yet they did not have any relevant documents. KWS suspected that they may have hidden other trophies in the containers.

KWS official were investigating the matter from the headquarters in Nairobi. They wanted to find out how the containers full of sandalwood had travelled that far without being detected.

Three people, Jane Nyambura, Frank Jeremiah Frank and Daniel Muya, were eventually charged with being in possession of East African sandalwood worth Sh40 million.

Tags: corruption, Great Rift Valley, Helen Dufresne, Milgis Trust, sandalwood, wildlifedirect

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Category: China, Ivory, Trade, elephants, wildlife trade | Date: Oct 28 2008 | By: Maina

Today, 28 October 2008, Namibia opened bidding for the 9 tonnes of ivory stockpiles it wants to auction in the controversial CITES backed one-off sale. The media has been shut out of this auction. According to a report appearing in the Namibian, a national paper, The Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET) never made an official announcement about the international auction. Most people would wonder if the government is ashamed or it’s trying to hide something.

Tonnes of applications and requests by international and national media houses piled into the Ministry’s in boxes but nobody was going to bother. When asked on Monday, the Deputy Environment and Tourism Minister Leon Jooste told media representatives that “It is too late to change the Ministry’s strategy with regard to the ivory auction.”

Local and regional conservation NGOs will also not be let into the auction. A request by the southern Africa office of the International Association for Animal Welfare (IFAW) to be allowed observer status was curtly rejected some two weeks ago. “The [MET] official just flatly denied us the possibility,” Christina Pretorius, Programme Manager of IFAW Southern Africa, is quoted as having told The Namibian on Monday.

Botswana will sell it’s 44 tonnes on Friday 30 October while South Africa, with the largest sale of 51 tonnes, and ZIMBABWE, 4 tonnes, will follow suit on 2 and 5 November respectively. In total, a whooping 108 tonnes of ivory will enter the market. The effect of this massive influx of ivory in the Chinese and Japanese markets, according to most conservationists, will be a corresponding increase in poaching to affect the rest of Africa. Traffic, the trade monitoring body under CITES however maintains that there is no evidence to support these allegations. Whatever happened to taking precautions?

The southern Africa states participating in this one off sale of ivory stockpiles first approved - in principle - by CITES in 2002, made $ 5-million in the last one off sale some 9 years ago in 1999. This year, according to the BBC, they expect to make $ 30-million - quite an increase occasioned just by the entry of China into the fray. They say this money will go towards elephant conservation. Traffic says that the ivory will not leave China and Japan into other markets. The two governments have promised to ensure that that does not happen but that is another story. There is evidence - overwhelming evidence - that illegal ivory trade is still alive and far outsells the legal trade.

The wisdom of this sale is quite questionable. If elephants are still endangered in most African states, then there is no logic really to let the sale of ivory - with the potential of fanning poaching - to anyone. Inasmuch as the data that Traffic presented does not show any increase in illegal trade, the fact remains that illegal trade will not go away just because the stockpiles have been sold and $30-million is injected into conservation (and this - if the money does indeed end up in conservation - will be in states where elephant populations are already growing).

Moreover, reports from Zimbabwe indicate that a large percentage of the wildlife has been eaten by desperate country folk or hunted illegally by unscrupulous safari hunting companies as the country’s governance sunk into an abyss. How can anyone justify allowing Zimbabwe to sell ivory? Besides, who knows when South Africa, Namibia and Botswana would end up with a dysfunctional government resulting in massive poaching and - perhaps - eventual extinction of elephants?

The insertion that selling these stockpiles will help conservation is myopic. This sale will only keep demand for ivory alive. And when the southern states have no more ivory to sell, who will feed China’s growing hunger for ivory? Is it not the rest of Africa where elephants are not properly protected? Is it not poaching?

One Kevin C from Taipei commenting on the BBC article puts things rather candidly:

Sounds like It is also a very good idea to sell drug stockpiles in police office. It will reduce the market value and make it less profitable to smuggle and produce it underground.

You are always welcome to have your say. This is a matter that needs all your input. Tell us what you think.

Tags: auction, China, CITES, hunting, Ivory, ivory stockpiles, Japan, Namibia, poaching, southern Africa, wildlife trade, Zimbabwe

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Category: Emergencies, Forests, Gorillas, Trade, wildlife | Date: Oct 10 2008 | By: baraza

We are all been glued to the depressing headlines every day about the housing crisis, economic credit crunch, collapsing banks. On the bright side we are witnessing an unprecedented level of global cooperation to manage bailouts and rescue packages to save the worlds’ economies.I don’t think I’m alone in wondering how come we couldn’t get this level of cooperation on global climate change. Surely it is having an even greater impact on global economies.

The current financial news focuses on industrial nations of North America and Europe but here in Africa (and I’m sure it’s similar in other developing countries) we are already feeling the impact. We’re experiencing massive inflation which affects us all. Yesterday I heard about a middle class Kenyan family who are now feeding their children on anything that fills their stomach. Although they are a well educated couple, they cannot afford to balance their children’s diet. It’s a vicious cycle – the kids will be undernourished, will perform poorly at school. This will cap their own prospects and limit their capacity to escape poverty.

So, we are reacting to the financial crisis because it affects each of us individually. We approve the bail out rescue packages, and have allowed our governments to take billions of dollars from our taxes to rescue failing financial institutions.

Many environmentalists and conservationists are amazed that we can galvanize global coordination to prevent a global financial crisis; and furious that the same countries couldn’t come together and agree on a rescue package to address other global crises like climate change and poverty in developing countries.

This story appeared today on the BBC website and it stirred me to write this post because while the financial situation may be a global crisis, it is nothing compared to the unfolding environmental crisis . A new report by TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) informs us that are racing towards catastrophic damage to our economies because of what how we are destroying biodiversity and ecosystem services.

What are ecosystem services and how dependent are we on them?

Our very existence is tied to ecosystems.

They clean our water and air; give us fertile soils; provide us with building materials and clothing (timber, cotton); pollinate our crops (bees); store carbon and stop the world from over-heating. The list goes on.

33 Billion - the annual value of these ecosystem services in US Dollars

16 Billion – the annual value of the global economy

In this study by Robert Costanza and others  of 17 ecosystem services in 16 biomes, the value of ecosystem services that are not already captured in economic markets is US $15 – 54 Trillion (that’s twelve 0’s!) with an average of US $33 trillion. They emphasize that this is a minimum estimate. To put this into perspective remember that the Global economy is worth about US $16 trillion – half of what nature gives us for free.

To make this real, consider pollination services – without pollinators like bees, we would have virtually no vegetables and of course no honey! The value of pollination of our commercial crops is estimated to be US $216 billion every year. We can survive without bees, of course but imagine if we had to do all that pollination by hand!

It is this value that we do not capture in our economic evaluations. These ecosystem services are considered free public goods! There are no markets and no prices. We simply don’t count them in our national economies and they don’t feature in our economic planning.

We are trashing our ecosystems and losing a host of free services

By 2050 11% of the natural areas remaining in 2000 could be lost to agricultural expansion, the expansion of infrastructure, and climate change.

Almost 40% of the land currently under low-impact agriculture could be converted to intensive agricultural use, with further biodiversity losses

60% of coral reefs could be lost - even by 2030 - through fishing, pollution, diseases, invasive alien species, and coral bleaching due to climate change.

And climate change is exacerbating this problem.

What are the global financial implications?

In an interview here, the lead author of the TEEB report Pavan Sukhdev warns that “the fisheries that are basically going to die out in 40 years time don’t just mean $80 to 100 billion worth of lost fishing income, but also lost protein for the world’s billion poorest people”.

Nearly one-third of the world’s fisheries are severely depleted, and some have suffered complete collapse, such as the Grand Banks cod stocks off Canada’s eastern coast. If current trends continued, we will have no commercially viable marine fisheries left within fifty years.

The loss of biodiversity will have serious repercussions on the world’s economy. The TEEB report predicts we are losing forest ecosystem services at a rate of between $2 trillion and $5 trillion per year. This is the combined value of their services, including cleaning water and absorbing carbon dioxide. The situation will worsen with time as our natural stock is depleted, and we lose the services they provide. It’s a little like losing the interest from an investment, as you eat into the capital. Except that the value of the services a forest provides, is worth many times what we would make if we were to chop down the timber and sell it on the open market.

We tend to undervalue things that we get for free.

We understand the value of those things that we spill our sweat for. The TEEB report suggests that we have flawed economic analysis and we’ve been making policy mistakes. Because environmental services are ‘free’ their loss often is not detected by our current economic incentive system, losses due to deforestation, unsustainable harvesting, habitat destruction etc will continue unabated. To add salt to this wound, the world’s poor are most at risk from the continuing loss of biodiversity, as they are the ones that are most dependent on the ecosystem services that are being degraded.

How big is the problem?

Between 1900 and today we have destroyed 50% of the worlds wetlands. In addition 30% of the our coral reefs are damaged and 35% of our magroves deforested. Extinction rates are now 1000 times greater than they should be and the IUCN states that 70% of the worlds plants are in jeopardy. This is already affecting food, water and health. By 2050 7.5 million square kilometers be lost – that’s the size of Australia.

The TEEB report suggests that the cost of the loss of biodiversity today dwarfs the current financial crisis and that we urgently need a rescue package for environment.

You can read the full TEEB report here or the executive summary here.

Bailing out ecosystems

We know that our very well being is totally dependent upon these “ecosystem services” and that we are hurtling towards a crisis, and yet we are not even talking about any sort of rescue package for ecosystems. No one has dared quantify how much that would cost us.

However, the TEEB report warns that if we do not adopt the right policies, the current decline in biodiversity and the related loss of ecosystem services will continue and even accelerate. Some ecosystems are likely to be damaged beyond repair. With a “business as usual” scenario, by 2050 we, or our children and grand children will be faced with serious consequences.

I agree with Corey, the TEEB report is “Yet more evidence that we have to stop the extinction crisis“

Although it sounds horrendous, we mustn’t see this situation as hopeless. Ecosystems are far more robust than banks and economies. If we lose millions of dollars in ecosystem services by chopping down a forest, we can recover that value with a relatively small investment in forest restoration.  It’ll take years but nature also has her own inbuilt repair mechanisms. We can help her to speed up the recovery by planting, protecting and managing the restoration.

Here’s an example of what can be achieved after only 30 years of forest restoration in Africa.

Tree planting with nitrogen fixing casuarina after open cast mining has stripped all the surface soil and rock at Lafarge in Mombasa Kenya

30 years later the restored ecosystem provides many services - cleaning water, producing fish, carbon sequestration, wildlife habitat, recreation and income generation. It is a global showcase and should be replicated and scaled up. You can see more about this amazing place here

Tags: biodiversity, rescue plan, TEEB report, wildlifedirect

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Category: China, Ivory, Trade, elephants, wildlife trade | Date: Jul 30 2008 | By: Maina

In an earlier post, I reported that the US is second only to China in the size of the ivory blackmarket. Well, although most American buyers were said to be unaware of the legality of their ivory purchases, it turns out that there are glaring legal loopholes that traders are exploiting to fan the blackmarket.

Acclaimed wildlife trade investigators, Dr Esmond Bradley Martin and Daniel Stiles, spent several months in the US visiting 16 of America’s main towns and cities where ivory is sold between 2006 and 2007. Their report, Ivory Markets in the USA, has just been published. The report shows that even though the US is far ahead in its control of illegal ivory trade compared to Africa and Asia (US only comparable to Europe), its large population and vast buying power renders stringent control of ivory trade critical.

And there are controls. The US Endangered Species Act (ESA) and various other legislation conform with CITES stipulations but there is leeway that can be exploited. Antique worked ivory (at least 100 years old), for example, can legally be imported and sold (according to both CITES and US laws). This leaves the market wide open for fake antiques (fabricated using smoke, dyes and exposure to heat and acidity). Trophy tusks can also be imported legally from the southern African countries that allow hunting but the raw ivory cannot be used commercially. This opens shady alleys where ivory from anywhere can easily find its way into the market with fake documents of origin. The same law allows sale of trophy tusks imported before July 1975, when CITES came into force, which again makes it that much easier to sell all and any purported trophy.

Twenty-two states have integrated federal wildlife laws into state laws and there is generally good cooperation between state and federal agencies. When wildlife specimens originate outside the US, however, law enforcement agencies find it hard to deal with and ivory is no exception. “Once ivory enters the US, it can move free of inspection within the 50 states. Neither state nor federal agencies regularly inspect shops or antiques fairs for wildlife products.” say Martin and Stiles in an article published in Swara magazine.

In a country where 24,000 worked ivory items on sale in 657 outlets were recorded by this particular investigation, it is no wonder that the market should be second only to China’s statistics. Of the 16 cities investigated, New York had by far the most ivory for sale: a minimum of 11,376 ivory items in 124 outlets, which is almost 5 times higher than the second highest, San Fransisco Bay Area with 2,777 items in 49 outlets. Greater LA records a close 2,605 items although in more outlets (170) closing the top three. Ivory workers are however difficult to find since they mostly work from home and are widely scattered throughout the 50 state colossus.

Interestingly, most of the recent imports of ivory into the US came from China! Since the US has never conducted any census on ivory and maintains no stockpile, it is difficult to know how much ivory is out there.

Granted, the US authorities hold the record for the highest number of ivory seizures in the world. But they also seize large quantities of illegal drugs but that does not mean that they are winning the war on drugs. Illegal ivory, like these drugs, still gets in.

The problem is that although CITES resolutions have called for various actions to control ivory trade, the US has implemented none of them. Particularly, according to the article by Martin and Stiles in Swara magazine, the US should pay attention to these actions:
1) Prohibit the unregulated domestic sale of ivory. the owner of the ivory should prove lawful possession
2) Register or license all importers, wholesalers, and retailers dealing in ivory items
3) Establish nationwide procedure, especially in retail outlets, informing tourists and other non-nationals not to purchase ivory in cases where it is illegal for them to import it into their own home countries
4) Introduce recording and inspection procedures to enable government agencies to monitor the flow of ivory within the country

Tags: CITES, elephants, Ivory, US, wildlife trade

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