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

2 responses so far

Category: Africa, Ivory, elephants | Date: Jul 31 2009 | By: paula

“Africa and Asian elephants are in for tough times ahead” says Iain Douglas-Hamilton of Save the Elephants. After the ivory sales last year, elephant poaching has increased. Many conservationists believe it is being fueled by the demand in Eastern countries – yet nobody dares to say this. The money raised from the sales of ivory was supposed to go into elephant conservation. Some people who dare to call themselves conservationists argued that the ban on ivory was wrong, the burn was wasteful, and that the sale of ivory was the best way to generate funds and support for elephant conservation.  Well, how come elephants are worse off today than they were before the sales?

And, how come ivory is now selling at US$ 1,888/kg in Vietnam? Isn’t it obvious that the one off sale has stimulated demand and prices are rising? Now even the IUCN is saying that elephantas are in trouble …but they are confining their concerns to Asian elephants …why??

It’s now apparent that the four southern African countries that sold their ivory to China and Japan were duped – their stock piles fetched prices in the range of 100 – 120$/kg! The real value of ivory in eastern markets is at least ten times this. Southern African countries were cheated by the East - but I’m not feeling sorry for them!

Even more worrying however that the CITES conference that approved the one off sale did so on condition of a 9 year moratorium. Kenya led that campaign and the conference adopted it. But they made a MASSIVE BLUNDER. The wording of the agreement only binds the countries that sold their stocks. It does not include countries like Sudan, Tanzania and Zambia that have massive (and some illegally acquired) stockpiles . With renewed demand in Asia, these countries are likely to demand for sales of their stockpiles too at the next CITES conference.

Iain Douglas–Hamilton and I discussed this problem with his researchers at his house last night. He showed me the maps of elephant killings in Kenya in 2008 – the image is frightening. the country is covered in dots- each one representing a dead elephant. He says it isn’t as bad as it was in the 1960,s but I reminded him that back then we had ten times as many elephants. Based on genetic evidence from tusks, Sam Wasser believes that the proportion of elephants we are losing today is far greater than any time in history.

I met Iain about 30 year ago when as a young volunteer recruited to measure Kenya’s ivory stockpile. It as a morbid job but we had to know what was happening. We weighed and measured every single tusk and estimated the age of the elephant that had died. We processed 30 tons of ivory in 2 days. The information showed us that poachers were going for younger and younger animals. At that point, I had never seen an elephant in the wild, but I was so disgusted with the killings and disillusioned about the future of elephants that I turned down a project on ele’s and went on to study primates. Later I did study elephants for my PhD, when the ivory ban was working and guns had fallen silent.

These are the 30 tons of ivory that I measured in 1989. Kenya’s president burned the lot and the world praised him for it.

Sadly, those guns are back in action and Africa’s elephants are once again at risk because we were persuaded by greedy people to run a risky experiment.

It feels like the precautionary principle has gone extinct.  If we aren’t careful, we will soon be seeing the nightmarish scenes of hacked off faces of elephants that dominated the conservation news in the 1980’s.

Iain asked me ‘what are we going to do about it?” and I looked at him blankly, I didn’t have an answer.

What would you have replied - what can we do?

Tags: China, elephant poaching, elephants, Ivory, Kenya, Samburu, stockpiles, Tsavo

5 responses so far

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: Africa, elephants, wildlifedirect | Date: May 04 2009 | By: admin

Dear Friends,

We have just heard sad news of the demise of Echo from Cynthia Moss of the Amboseli Trust for Elephants. Echo died on the 2nd of May from old age and the drought. I personally met Echo and others in the her family many times in Amboseli - she was easy to identify by her crossed tusks. She was a fierce protector of her family, builting it up from 7 individuals to 40 over the years. She and her family starred of the documentary Echo of the Elephants. If you haven’t seen it then you simply must. It is unforgettable.

Light a candle for Echo.

I can’t believe she is gone. Amboseli will never be the same.

RIP Echo.

Paula
Read more about this on AERP blog and Cynthia Moss blog at http://elephanttrust.org

Article at the following link:

http://elephanttrust.org/node/551

Tags: Amboseli, Amboseli Trust for Elephants, conservation, Cynthia Moss, E family, Echo, elephants, Ivory, Kenya

7 responses so far

Category: Ivory, elephants, poaching, wildlife trade | Date: Apr 29 2009 | By: admin

Two men were arrested on the 25th April for carrying 703 kg (1,550 lb) of elephant ivory in southern Kenya. They were traveling by vehicle in Tanzania when they were ambushed by wildlife scouts from the Amboseli-Tsavo Game Scouts Association. They fled across the Kenyan border, and were caught and arrested by authorities tipped off by the scouts.

This is biggest seizure in recent times in Kenya and the ivory is valued at around 59-60 million Kenyan shillings ($750,000). The men, whose identities have not been released, appeared in a Kajiado court on Monday morning where they plead guilty. The men  face up to a year in jail.

The haul of 33 whole tusks and 57 pieces, weighing over 700kg, is believed to represent over 50 individual elephants.

The Amboseli elephants are not anonymous animals, after more than 40 years of research each elephant is individually known. The field team now fear that “some of the tusks could belong to the splendid bull Ganesh or Echo’s son, Ely, or the impressive long-tusked Theodora from the TD family that has been spending more time in Kimana than Amboseli over the last decade”.

Who killed them and how? One person claims that these elephants could be the victims of Furadan poisoning. This is one of several indicators that ivory trade is on the rise as is elephant poaching in Kenya, Asia and Congo. Cynthia Moss of the Amboseli Trust for Elephant have been reporting alarming increases in poaching in the Amboseli ecosystem. We believe that this is all in response to the lifting of the ban on trade in ivory, and the one off sale that took place in Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Namibia in November last year.

Harvey Croze of ATE writes that “it appears that our concerns have been vindicated when Cynthia reported in February on increased poaching for ivory in Amboseli. Perhaps now authorities will take seriously the twin threat to Africa’s elephants: the one-off sale of ivory from southern African stockpiles to China, combined with the presence of Chinese roadgangs in the ecosystem”.

It is depressing that these two men face only a year in jail for one of the biggest seizures of ivory in Kenya. Their sentence will hardly dampen the demand or reduce the incentives for many who are greedy for ivory. We have it on good authority (from someone who wishes to remain anonymous), that the ivory was being transported in a vehicle owned by a powerful person. Until these bigger people are brought to justice, the poachers, and small time dealers will continue. The challenge is how to catch and prosecute these powerful, and politically connected big shots.

Four questions for you to think about

Kenya currently holds over 35 tons of ivory in her strong rooms - for some this represents fantastic commercial value, to us they represent death and destruction.

Q1. Do you think it is time we revive the ban on trade in ivory?

Q2. Do you think we should aggressively resume pursuing the perpetrators of this cruel trade?

Q3. Will you help us to raise awareness and demand for better protection for all elephants?

Q4. What should Kenya do with the 35 tons of stockpiled ivory?

Leave a comment and let us know what you think.

Tags: Amboseli, Cynthia Moss, elephant poaching, Ivory, ivory trade, Kenya, KWS, poaching, Tanzania

17 responses so far

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

4 responses so far

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: Uncategorized | Date: Feb 10 2009 | By: baraza

The number of Yunnan snub nosed monkeys has risen from more than 500 in 1983 to around 1,300 at present at the nature reserve thanks to the protection efforts of local government and residents. There are only 2,000 Yunnan golden monkeys in China -  one of the most endangered animals on earth.

This good news is countered by the sad news that yet ANOTHER Chinese person has been arrested  at Nairobi’s international airport with ivory.

Tags: China, Ivory, snub nosed monkeys, Yunnan

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