Baraza

I can’t shake the feeling that elephants are going to be the big news stories for coming weeks. First, we are all anxiously awaiting the 28th of this month when more than 100 tons of ivory will be auctioned in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
The sale approved by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, CITES, in July shocked many of us because China was approved as a trading partner. China! A country that has been implicated in enormous levels of illegal trade and even for organizing poaching in Kenya.  I’m talking to a number of people and I am doing some research on this issue. I’ll bring you some more posts and news about  what this means for Africa and elephants in coming days.

Today however, I’m in celebration mood. Ivory sales on Ebay are to end. This blog post is to send out a MASSIVE THANK YOU TO RICHARD BREWER-HAY of Ebay who made the decision and the announcement on an inhouse blog here.

The announcement has led to a media frenzy about this including BBC, and on Market watch – they emphasize that the announcement came just moments before a damning report by IFAW that the popular auctioning site is a place that launders vast amounts of ivory. You can download the IFAW report “Killing with Keystrokes” here.

Quick search on Ebay for “elephant ivory”  gives 6 pages with 25 items for sale on each! You can also get other elephant products like hide.

Regardless of why Ebay made the announcement, I think it’s great that conservation pressure have had an impact on Ebay. I’m a bit saddened that the ban  is not immediate but comes into effect on January 1st 2009. So, for the time being anyoen can still buy ivory trinkets – a quick search on Ebay revealed a suprising number of items on sale!

Hopefully the ivory ban is just the beginning, for sure there are many other wildlife products especially in oriental medicines, that are made up of body parts from endangered species. These should all be banned as well without delay as IFAW write another report. I’ve left a note on the Ebay blog to this effect. You can too…if you get a chance, leave a thank you  to Richard on the Ebay blog here.

On a related topic, elephants in Kenya are being saved by cell phones on a private ranch through a partnership between a conservationist Iain Douglas Hamilton, a private ranch owner and the largest Cell phone company Safaricom. The elephant with the cell phone device on a radio-collar  basically sends text messages to rangers every time he gets too close for comfort to villages. The rangers swing into action and chase him away – saving his life as well as the crops and lives of people in the village. Its an extraordinary use of cell phone technology and everyone is talking about it- check out Wildele’s here and Afrigadget blog about innovations in Africa.

Well, for your benefit, I’m going to see Ian Douglas Hamilton from Save the Elephants tomorrow to get you the inside scoop so stay tuned to Baraza blog.

A few weeks ago we reported that an internet site was selling a baby gorilla in Cameroon. We reported this to LAGA the Last Great Ape organization. This Cameroon Tribune in Yaounde reports that an arrest has been made of an internet scammer selling endangered species with the help of LAGA. This is the full story:

The Control Brigade of the South West Delegation of Forestry and Wildlife has arrested another Internet scammer engaged in selling endangered and totally protected or class A wildlife species through the Internet. The arrested Internet scammer is accused of carrying out, with an accomplice based in China, international fraud schemes involving falsification of government documents.

The South West Forestry and Wildlife Delegation was assisted in the arrest of the Internet scammer by the Forces of Law and Order, the Judiciary and The Last Great Ape Organisation (LAGA). Internet wildlife trafficking in totally protected wildlife species is punishable under Cameroon’s laws. Sections 101 and 158 of the 1994 wildlife law provides for 1 to 3 years imprisonment term and 3 to 10 million CFA francs while section 203 of the penal code gives a maximum of 20 year-sentence to anyone found guilty of using falsified government documents.

The Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife is now in a renewed alert mode to track down and sanction all those who do not respect the wildlife law. “Our Country Cameroon can and will in no way afford to encourage direct or distant illegal trade in its wildlife heritage”, states Professor Elvis Ngolle Ngolle, Minister of Forestry and Wildlife.

The recent arrest of the Internet scammer in wildlife trade came after a call on governments during the last Conference of Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to increase efforts in combating illegal Internet wildlife trade and fraud, bearing in mind the fact that trafficking in wildlife trade has taken a new dimension through Internet, a method the South West Delegate of Forestry and Wildlife, Mbah Grace describes as being remote. “This method is remote because it is not something which is tangible, you can’t see it, so the traffickers do it through the Internet and you need high techniques to be able to track this type of dangerous illegal wildlife traders”, said Mbah Grace.

Describing the extent to which wildlife crime through the Internet has gone, the Director of The Last Great Ape Organisation (LAGA), Ofir Drori states, “We now realize that Internet wildlife fraud scheme is far organized than we had thought. Internet fraud is now a fast growing criminal activity in Cameroon”, adding “We will continue to concentrate on more investigations in collaboration with authorities around the world with complaints of Internet wildlife trade and fraud in Cameroon”.