Baraza

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: wildlifedirect | Date: Aug 26 2009 | By: admin

This is a fun survey - please take a moment and give us your  thoughts on this survey

Oh, and forward the link to your friends, through email, Facebook, Twitter, myspace… have I left anything out?

Thanks !

Tags: bunny hugger, conservation, elephant, Lion, survey, tiger, volunteer, wildlife, wildlifedirect

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Category: Africa, China, Ivory, Kenya, Rhinoceros, elephants, poaching, wildlife trade | Date: Jul 20 2009 | By: Maina

On Tuesday last week, Kenyan authorities seized a 300kg haul of elephant tusks and rhino horn hidden in coffins at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA). This large haul, valued at approximately $ 1-million, is thought to have either come from Tanzania or South Africa and was headed for Laos. Officials of the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) however speculate that the load’s final destination was indeed China, but through Laos, the de-facto ‘gateway to China’.

A previous haul of illegal ivory as reported on Baraza in April 2009

The KWS has been complaining about increasing ivory poaching since the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) allowed a one-off sale of ivory from southern Africa to China and Japan.  The entry of China into the world trade in ivory was in itself a cause for alarm amongst many conservationists on account of what is viewed as China’s laissez-faire attitude towards wildlife - except the giant panda.  There have been reports from the KWS and other organizations in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa indicating that there is definitely a rise in poaching for ivory and rhino horn.

According to the KWS, the rise in ivory poaching is partly caused by the CITES declaration to allow minimal trade from southern Africa. They say that this declaration created the illusion that it was OK to trade in ivory. If the number of seizures of ivory being witnessed today is anything to go by, then the KWS are right: the CITES declaration is indeed responsible for this mess.

It’s not just elephant poaching that is a problem. Just the previous week, a report was made public that indicates that rhino poaching has reached a 15 year high. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature, IUCN, and the global conservation organization WWF, and their affiliated wildlife trade monitoring network, TRAFFIC, told a CITES committee in a recent meeting that poachers in Africa and Asia are killing as many as two to three animals a week in some areas to meet a growing demand for the horns. What is more worrying is that this poaching is no longer a subsistence activity but it has now evolved into organized crime similar to cocaine and small arms rackets.

Elephants and rhinos are in a very dire situation as this new wave of wanton decimation of the majestic creatures picks up pace. We are witnessing the inevitable extinction of - in the case of the rhino - an evolutionary relic that generations upon generations of humans have marveled at; and the total loss of - in the case of the elephant - the gentle intelligent giant that has been the centre of almost all mythology.

Sentimental values aside, these are ‘keystone’ species that shape the environment that they occur in. Keeping a balance in the ecology of their habitat, and therefore determining the biological diversity of these habitats. The looming departure of these two could permanently alter ecosystems - in the most part - for the worst.

Poaching can do that, and this is going to happen in our lifetime.

A solution has to be found. We first have to stop lying to ourselves that there can be any sustainable trade in elephant ivory and rhino horn. We have seen this with our own eyes. It’s never going to happen. Having realized that, governments should tighten the noose on illegal traffic routes, cut down the poachers on sight, and increase punishment for poaching offenders. China and it’s Asian friends will need to be re-educated.

Dr Richard Leakey, while he was the head of KWS, led an elephant anti-poaching campaign back in the mid-1980s which brought down a large number of poaching rings. It has been 20 years since the symbolic burning of  12 tonnes of ivory - then worth about $3 million and from approximately 2000 dead elephants - at the height of the campaign. Today, elephant population that had dropped from 167, 000 in 1973 to a paltry 16,000 in 1989, now stand at 32,ooo. These numbers could easily start falling if nothing is done about the recent upsurge in poaching. Current wildlife officials could learn from this and step up the fight against poachers on the local level, while all conservationists push for the total ban on trade in ivory and rhino horn.

The symbolic ivory burning in 1989

Again, China and the Asian world that still believes that rhino horn has medicinal value, and carvings from elephant ivory  are ‘cute’, needs re-education.

Tags: Africa, Asia, burning ivory, China, CITES, elephant, Ivory, KWS, poaching, rhino, rhino horn, richard leakey, wildlife trade

8 responses so far

Category: Ivory, elephants, wildlife trade | Date: Mar 17 2009 | By: baraza

Hello readers, it’s Paula here at 5.30 am and I can’t sleep - alarm bells are ringing in my head about ivory trade and elephant killings.

Here’s the time line

Mid 2007 online ivory sales reported to be booming

June 2007 CITES meeting…Kenya porposes a 20 year moratorium on ivory sales, supported by 21 “like-minded parties” including Mali, Ghana, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, Togo, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Burundi, Nigeria, Liberia, Comoros, Congo Brazzaville and Cote d’Ivoire. Ivory sales  get go ahead at CITES with blessing of major conservation organizations

“This African solution to an African problem marks a great step forward for wildlife conservation,” said CITES Secretary-General Willem Wijnstekers. “It is good news for the elephant, good news for the people who live alongside them and good news for regional cooperation in Africa.”

“We are looking for real conservation achievement on the ground,” said Tom Milliken, of TRAFFIC, director of TRAFFIC South and East Africa. “Let countries now take this spirit of goodwill and tackle the ivory that is being hemorrhaged illegally from West and Central Africa.”

The International Fund for Animal Welfare, IFAW, says that at least 20,000 elephants are killed annually for their ivory and the lives of about 100 rangers are lost each year protecting them.  They warn that the auctions would stimulate Asian markets demand smuggling and poaching.

Nobody listens.

The Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS) analysis reveals that key problem countries for illegal ivory are the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Cameroon, Thailand and China.

Nobody takes any notice

October 2008 Namibia opens bidding in controversial ivory auction

Renowned conservationist Richard Leakey expresses concern  and calls it a disservice to conservation

November 2008 Ivory auctions take place in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe 100 tons sold raising $15 million. Price? $150 per kg.  

November 2008 57 people arrested and one ton of illegal ivory seized in a sweep of 50 locations in Kenya, Congo Brazaville, Ghana, Uganda and Zambia.  

January 2009 Ebay bans ivory on online auctions

Three months after auctions, Kenya reports alarming increase in elephant poaching  98 killed in 2008 vs 48 the year before. Two poachers are arrested by KWS. Five elephants killed in February. British MP’s raises alarm over increase in poaching.  

Conservation groups blame demand in China for runaway elephant killings

February 2009  Despite fear of reprisals, Cynthia Moss of the Amboseli Elephant Trust reports a surge in elephant killings and decries the lack of government response.

February 2009 Jane Goodall adds her voice to the role of China in plundering Africa’s resources.

February 2009 Legal auctions were supposed to depress illegal prices right? Wrong! TRAFFIC and WWF report ivory prices in Vietnam are highest in the world at $1500 – $1,863/kg more than ten times the value of legal ivory sold in November 2008! The few remaining Asian elephants are now at grave risk.

March 2008 Vietnam seize over 7 tons of ivory from Tanzania and plans to auction it. Why is nobody questioning this?

China deny’s any link or responsibility for increasing poaching and ivory seizure and publish the Chinese official position piece in local newspapers

Report from Therese Hart in DR Congo reveals that elephants down by 80% in last 50 years.

Why can’t I sleep?

My problem with all this is that CITES is supposed to uphold the precautionary principle. Obviously warnings in 2008 were well placed but there seems to be nobody doing anything about the escalating illegal ivory sales, elephant killings and ivory laundering. Where is the voice of TRAFFIC, WWF, AWF, FFI…all the organizations that were born and or grew out of the elephant crisis in the 1980s? They all supported the ivory sales and none of them seem to be willing to admit it was a MASSIVE STUPID MISTAKE and that measures must be taken now to reverse the impact.

How many more elephants do we have to lose before we have the courage to admit that it was a mistake to renew ivory trade? It is obvious that the flood of legal trade has created a wonderful opportunity for illegal ivory to be laundered, and demand and prices are so high in Vietnam that officials are obviously being corrupted, and countries are taking the law in to their own hands (Vietnam is planning to auction ivory seized from Tanzania!)

CITES will claim that the 9 year moratorium on further auctions will prevent further growth in demand or release of ivory onto markets. The truth that nobody is talking about, is that the moratorium only applies to four countries…I predict that at the next CITES conference we will see ivory sale proposals from a number of African countries including Tanzania, DR Congo, Uganda and maybe even Kenya! These countries are not bound by the moratorium.  

Grrr…it makes me so mad. What do you think? How can we get a message out?

Tags: China, CITES, DR Congo, elephant, elephant killings, elephant populations, ETIS, ivory trade, Jane Goodall, richard leakey, wildlifedirect, WWF

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Category: elephants | Date: Mar 03 2009 | By: baraza

I just received this extraordinary story from someone who describes it as ‘disgusting, revolting’

What do you think?

MELISSA SANTOS; MELISSA.SANTOS@THENEWSTRIBUNE.COM

Published: 02/16/09  12:09 am   |   Updated: 02/16/09   7:31 am

Madeline Jones has painted on all sorts of surfaces. But the Orting artist’s favorite canvases are the ears of African elephants.

Jones, 66, has spent the past 12 years painting elephant ears for hunters who bring them back from Africa.

Each measures about 5 feet tall by 31/2 feet wide and sells for several thousand dollars when she’s done – even in tough economic times, like now.

“I have a nice niche,” she said. “Having a specialty allows me to survive.”

Jones is a fixture in the Orting Valley, having helped design the community’s Daffodil Festival float for 18 years. A local resident for more than 50 years, she is the wife of former Mayor Dale Jones.

Painting elephant ears allows her to tap into her love of Africa on a daily basis.

In her studio on her longtime family property, portraits of African tribesmen line the walls. Impala fur rugs adorn the floors. And a half-dozen painted elephant ears complete the decoration.

On an easel near a window rests her current project: an elephant ear she’s decorating with a map of Africa. The map of the continent is one of her most requested designs, she said.

She embellishes the ear with illustrations of Africa’s five most popular big-game hunting animals – the leopard, the cape buffalo, the lion, the rhinoceros and the elephant.

She said she likes working with the elephant ears because each is unique.

“You don’t have the confines of a rectangle,” Jones said. “Even if someone wants the same design, it has to be different because the ear is different. There’s never going to be another ear like that one.”

All the ears she paints are from legally hunted pachyderms, she said. When hunters send her an ear they’d like her to adorn, they include a copy of the permit proving they had permission to hunt the animal.

Though commercial trading of ivory has been banned since 1989, U.S. hunters are allowed to import elephant trophies from countries including South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Tanzania.

The countries typically use fees they collect from hunters to help pay for conservation efforts. They also use hunting to control the animal population and limit conflicts between humans and elephants, which occur partly as a result of human encroachment on the animals’ natural habitat.

Though some animal rights groups, such People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, oppose the practice, Jones said conservation hunting provides valuable income for local governments in Africa, as well as food for villagers. Tourists who go on hunting safaris often spend tens of thousands of dollars to hunt a single animal.

“It’s only done where there are too many,” Jones said. “Everything that isn’t needed goes right back to the villages. Nothing is wasted.”

Lisa Wathne, a PETA spokeswoman, said the issue is more controversial than hunters would like to think.

“Most people actually assume that it’s illegal to hunt elephants and are appalled when they find out it’s not,” Wathne said. “Really, ‘conservation hunting’ is a misleading term for trophy hunting.”

The ears themselves don’t carry any inherent value like ivory does, Jones said. Hunters typically want them for personal reasons, such as to display in a trophy room or office.

“The value is added by the artist,” she said.

Hunters typically have the elephant skinned in Africa and send the ear to a tannery before mailing it to Jones. People will send her elephant ears from all over the world.

They typically arrive at Jones’ doorstep folded in a box. She sends them to a taxidermist, who stretches them and mounts them on marine plywood. When Jones gets them back about six weeks later, they’re ready to paint.

The ear Jones is working on now is rough, with thick hairs protruding from the surface. That’s because this piece of skin was cut from an elephant’s outer ear, Jones said. She also works with skin from elephants’ inner ears, which feels like smooth leather.

The first ear Jones painted came from a friend who lives in Seattle. About 12 years ago, he asked the artist if she would paint an ear for him.

Since then, she’s painted about six to 10 a year for different clients.

Her designs are based on photographs she took during a two-month trip to Africa a decade ago.

The experience changed her life, she said. She spent most of her time in Kenya and Tanzania, getting to know members of the Masai tribe.

“Ever since I was young I had an interest in Africa,” said Jones, who started painting at 16. “I thought, ‘I have to be there to see what the real thing is.’ You can’t paint things if you haven’t experienced them.”

Buzzi Cook, a taxidermist who mounts the ears on plywood for Jones, said her passion shows in her paintings.

“She does very fine detail work,” said Cook, who owns Olympic Taxidermy Studio Inc. in North Bend. “Everybody that’s had work done by her that I’ve talked to is totally impressed.”

Cook said poaching and illegal hunting of elephants in Africa has become virtually impossible due to increased regulations. Huge amounts of paperwork are required to export an elephant ear from an African country and get it into the United States, he said.

“It’s very controlled,” Cook said. “It’s not like you can go out and kill 20 to 30 elephants and come home.”

Recently, Jones has begun creating replicas of her elephant ear paintings on canvas. The replicas are about one-fifth the cost of a real painted ear, she said, and are growing in popularity.

She said she’s just happy she’s become successful doing what she loves.

“Some people don’t paint anything but seascapes,” Jones said. “This is my passion.”

Tags: Africa, art, conservation, elephant, hunting, Ivory, Madeline Jones

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Category: Ivory, elephants, enforcement, poaching, wildlife trade | Date: Nov 18 2008 | By: Maina

A coordinated swoop on illegal ivory traders and poachers across 5 African countries yielded one ton of poached ivory and 57 illegal dealers this weekend. The swoop, coordinated by INTERPOL and involving more than 300 personnel from the Lusaka Agreement Task Force (LATF) local police, wildlife authorities and intelligence agencies in the 5 countries, is being described as the biggest crackdown on illegal wildlife trade in the world.

The operation - a result of 4 months of intensive intelligence work which started in June 2008 - was conducted in Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Uganda and Zambia. In Kenya alone, forces consisting of INTERPOL, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), LATF, the National Security Intelligence Services and local police bagged 36 suspects and seized 113 pieces of ivory items weighing 358-kilograms. The Kenya Police and KWS are still tracking four suspects who slipped through the highly coordinated dragnet.

The huge Kenyan operation is summarized thus by the KWS:

A total of 10 KWS field units in areas most prone to illegal ivory trade and trafficking in Kenya participated in the operation. The Kenya Police, Lusaka Agreement Task force, National Security Intelligence Service, Customs Department, the Judiciary and the INTERPOL supported KWS. The operation was conducted in Nairobi, Amboseli, Tsavo East, Mombasa, Isiolo, Marsabit, Narok, Maralal, Nakuru and Aberdares.

The law enforcement agencies in all 5 countries had decided to synchronize the operation in each country so that any suspect who tried to cross borders would be sniffed out and stung at the airports or other crossing points. The approach seems to have worked.

According to the INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble, Operation Baba is the first in a series of operations of this nature being planned worldwide.

“International co-operation is key to law enforcement today. With the ‘globalisation’ of criminal syndicates, people who abide by the law have no alternative than to confront those syndicates in the international arena,” said Mr. Noble. “This is where INTERPOL’s core function of operational police support services, which can facilitate co-operation between law enforcement agencies in multiple countries, proves its worth.”

I commend all the law enforcement agencies that were involved in this operation and all those who supported the operations either financially, tactically or otherwise. I think with more of these kind of operations in the future, we are finally headed somewhere in the fight against elephant poaching.

Quick Facts:
Operation Baba was so named in honor of Ranger Gilbert Baba, a Ghanaian ranger who was shot and killed by poachers in the line of duty some 10 years ago

The Lusaka Agreement Task Force was created in 1994 by governments in this region as a mechanism for regional co-operation to fight illegal trade in wild animals and plants.

Tags: elephant, INTERPOL, Ivory, KWS, Lusaka Agreement Task Force, poaching, wildlife trade

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Category: China, Ivory, Zimbabwe, elephants, wildlife trade | Date: Nov 10 2008 | By: Maina

Our fears that the one-off ivory auction by four southern Africa states to China and Japan was not going to end well may come true. Not that that is any cause for us to wear a smirk and say “we told you so”, but a time for us to ask CITES to open their eyes.

There are reports in a Zimbabwean newspaper saying that Robert Mugabe’s government - cash strapped and hungry for foreign exchange to pay for imports - is planning to have the Chinese government pay for the ivory with guns Mugabe’s people ordered just before this year’s Zimbabwean presidential run-off. Apparently, Mugabe was facing an imminent end to his three-decade grip on power and decided to buy guns to wage war against the opposition should he loose the elections. The best place to buy these guns was from China since they are not participating in the arms embargo by western nations on Zimbabwe.

The report, published in the Zim Daily, indicate that part of the $480,000 Zimbabwe raised when they auctioned 3.5 tons of ivory last week is earmarked as payment for a cache of military hardware set to be flown into the capital Harare soon. The reports also indicate that in the run up to the ivory auction, “substantial quantities of high caliber weapons” had disappeared from the armory of Zimbabwe’s department of parks and wildlife near State House, Harare. During the same period, 200 elephants are reported to have been killed in the Zambezi Valley bordering Zambia. The Zimbabwe government blames this carnage on foreign animal rights groups which “want to thwart Mugabe’s bid to have CITES relax its trade rules”.

These reports have put the “fear of Mugabe” in conservationists who are now worried that Zimbabwe’s claim of being protector of the elephant is just a sham. Official Zimbabwe reports indicate that the country has 70,000 elephants in the wild, but experts think this is just window dressing by the government to get CITES to approve their proposal to sell all their alleged 20 tons of ivory stockpiles. The head of the wildlife department, Brigadier Albert Kanunga, a retired army officer, had lobbied CITES to allow them to sell 10 tons of ivory but only 3.5 tons were approved.

It is alleged that the ivory auctioned by Zimbabwe was flown out of Harare Airport on Thursday 6 November. If, then, the ivory for guns scam is true, the Chinese will bring Mugabe the guns sooner than latter. Apparently, an earlier shipping of Chinese military equipment bound for Harare had been turned away in the South African port of Durban. That could be the reason why China will fly in the new cache of arms.

Eight years ago in July 2000, a Nairobi based German wildlife conservation organization, ECOTERRA had revealed that Mugabe had sold 8 tons of ivory to China in exchange for firearms. According to the report on BNet website, the ivory had been flown out of Zimbabwe through Libya.

With such a record, it would be feasible to believe that last weeks CITES-backed auction will indeed be used to pay for more guns and ammo some of which - given the mysterious disappearance of arms from the wildlife department’s armory and consequent upsurge of elephant poaching- could be used in “harvesting” more ivory for Mugabe’s government. Which then negates the CITES claim that one-off sales will help elephant protection by reducing the attractiveness of poaching and investing the funds into conservation.

Moreover, Zambian and Senegalese middlemen operating in Zimbabwe organize underground deals through the “close-knit Chinese community” in South Africa to service the high demand for illegal ivory in China. This would imply that even South Africa, the allegorical “Big Brother” of Africa, is not fully in control of the ivory situation. In as much as Big Brother may have a tab of it’s own ivory stockpiles, they cannot rule out being used as a conduit for illegal ivory from tattered Zimbabwe. In short, the entire African continent is not ready for these - in Dr Richard Leakey’s words - ill advised one-off auctions.

In the end, what will save the elephant, in my view, is not how cheap ivory becomes - a la CITES - but how well we convince ordinary Chinese, Japanese and other Asian communities that they can practice their cultural beliefs without Ivory. Remove the demand for ivory and let the elephant roam the sunny grasslands of Africa without fear - like they did for millennia gone by. Legally selling government-held stockpiles will not kill demand.

Tags: China, CITES, elephant, guns, Ivory, ivory auctions, Japan, Mugabe, poaching, richard leakey, wildlife trade, Zimbabwe

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