Baraza

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

Greetings everyone,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I nodded but my mind was screaming

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

What do you think? Am I over reacting here?

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

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

Tags: China, CITES, IUCN, ivory trade, Jeffrey McNeely

4 responses so far