Baraza

Dear friends,

Representatives of the 17-country Coalition for the African Elephant have arrived in Brussels to discuss the ivory trading proposals. They want the European Union, which votes as a block, to say no to Tanzania and Zambia in Doha in March.

“We are asking the European Union to take a clear stance in support of a nine-year moratorium adopted in 2007 by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES),” Kenyan Forest and Fauna Minister Noah Wekesa told journalists.

According to an article in the Guardian, ivory prices have soared from $250 a kilogram in 2004 to more than $6,000 at present. Many scientists believe that this aws the result of stimulation of the chinese market after the November 2008 sale of stockpiled ivory from Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe which was bought by dealers from China and Japan. The sale of 105,000 kilograms of ivory, raised more than £15m, but has led to escalated poaching across Africa. Some scientists estimate that between 8 and 10% of the population is dying annually at the hands of poachers.

The UK has said no to ivory sales. Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said last night: “At the CITES meeting in March, the UK will vote against the proposals from Tanzania and Zambia to sell ivory stocks, and we would urge other countries to vote against such a sale.”

Meanwhile Namibia has backed ivory sales saying that the proposals from Zambia and Tanzania are in line with their policies. Never mind that tens of thousands of elephants are dying annually due to poaching which has been catalyzed by the one off sales in November 2008. Traffic International are warning that over 14,000 ivory items were siezed in 2009 compared to just 2,000 the year before.

TRAFFIC was established in 1976 and has developed into a global network, research-driven and action-oriented, committed to delivering innovative and practical conservation solutions based on the latest information. Yet despite all the information on how ivory sales spur the illegal killing of elephants, TRAFFI Boss Richard Thomas says “It is a really worrying situation, However, it is not absolutely clear what should be done.”

In other words, TRAFFIC does not want to influence the CITES delegaets with an opinion even though it is glaringly obvious. What is even sadder is that in 2007 the parties to CITES agreed on a 9 year moratorium on further sales. Apparently a mistake was entered on the agreement (intentionally or unintentionall) that limited the moratorium only to the five countries that were selling ivory. This mistake was not detected until after the vote and though Kenya protested it was too late. Of course what this did, was it created an opportunity for countries that did not sell ivory in 2008 to submit ivory sale proposals this year. We believe that the parties to CITES should honor the intentions of that agreement and reject Zambia and Tanzania, and indeed ask them to withdraw their proposals.

THe Coalition for the AFrican Elephant represent 17countries. Kenyas Miniser for Forestry and and Wildlife, Dr. Noah Wekesa is leading the team.

“We are asking the European Union to take a clear stance in support of a nine-year moratorium adopted in 2007 by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES),” Wekesa told journalists. .

“The EU plays a major role within CITES,” Wekesa insisted. “If it abstains during this vote, it will contribute towards worsening an already critical situation.”

Please support the Coalition for the African Elephant by circulating this email and writing to your CITES authorities to vote no to the ivory trade propsoals

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As the date of the CITES meeting in Doha draws near, Kenyan media is starting to get interested. On Saturday, Cynthia Vukets of Kenya’s NTV reported on the dangerous move Tanzania is making to have it’s elephants downlisted from Appendix I to Appendix II of the CITES Red List of Endangered Species thus allowing them to trade in their 89,848.74 kg of stockpiled ivory to Japan and China. This report, which aired in prime time TV slot (9pm news), also criticizes Zambia’s similar proposal for downlisting. The news item is now available on NTV’s You Tube channel and is embedded here.

Listening to the broadcast, you learn that Sierra Leone lost its entire elephant population to poachers in one day, even though it only had 6 elephants. Six elephants are better than no elephants

Our prayer is that with increased media coverage and more public awareness throughout the world, Delegates to the 15th CITES Conference of Parties (CoP15) will  feel obliged to reject Tanzania and Zambia’s proposals for downlisting of their elephants and vote for a 20-year moratorium on trade in ivory as proposed by Kenya, Congo, Ghana, Liberia, Mali and Sierra Leone.

To understand the epic battle for the elephant that is coming up in 2 months, when African Elephant range states lock horns in Doha, Qatar, to contest for amendments to CITES Appendix I and Appendix II, one must understand what is in the proposals submitted by both sides of the ivory trade divide.

On the one hand is the anti-trade range states consisting of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Mali and Sierra Leone. On the other hand, each with it’s own proposal is Zambia and Tanzania, who want to be allowed to sell their ivory stockpiles come the March 13-25 Doha   meeting – the 15th CITES  Conference of Parties (CoP15). Both sides have sent their proposals to the CITES secretariat and the secretariat has generously (or is it by requirement) posted the proposals on their website. The southern African states of Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and kingpin South Africa are silent in this one. After all, they already sold their stockpiles.

The anti-trade block has renewed the Kenya/Mali proposal made in 2007 for a 20 year moratorium on the trade in ivory, including one-off sales. This moratorium in the language of the proposals is presented as an amendment to both apendices by including an annotation regarding ALL populations of Loxodonta africana, as follows:

“No further proposals concerning trade in African elephant ivory, including proposals to downlist elephant populations from Appendix I to Appendix II, shall be submitted to the Conference of the Parties for the period from CoP14 and ending twenty years from the date of the single sale of ivory that took place in November 2008. Following this twenty year resting period, any elephant proposals shall be dealt with in accordance with Decisions 14.77 and 14.78.”

This change should be accompanied by the deletion of two paragraphs from the last meetings resolutions. One on the elephants of Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe that says:

“h) no further proposals to allow trade in elephant ivory from populations already in Appendix II shall be submitted to the Conference of the Parties for the period from CoP14 and ending nine years from the date of the single sale of ivory that is to take place in accordance with provisions in paragraphs g)i), g) ii), g) iii), g) vi) and g) vii). In addition such further proposals shall be dealt with in accordance with Decisions 14.77 and 14.78.”

and another one concerning the elephants of Namibia and Zimbabwe allowing

f) trade in individually marked and certified ekipas incorporated in finished jewellery for non-commercial purposes for Namibia and ivory carvings for non-commercial purposes for Zimbabwe;

Ekipas are traditional Namibian ivory carvings.

Tanzania which has the second largest population of eleohants in the continent (136,753) has proposed to be allowed to trade its ivory stockpiles by transfer of their elephant population from Appendix I to Appendix II  with an annotation that says:

“for the exclusive purpose of the following:
a)  trade in hunting trophies for non-commercial purposes;
b)  trade in registered raw ivory (whole tusks and pieces) subject to the following

They therefore directly ask for a one off sale of 89,848.74 kg of ivory from registered government-owned stocks, originating in Tanzania (excluding seized ivory and ivory of unknown origin) to registered buyers – which at the last CITES meeting included only Japan and China. They insist that they will not sell the ivory until the CITES Secretariat has verified the stocks and ‘assure’ the secretatriat that “the proceeds of the trade are used exclusively for elephant conservation, community conservation and development programmes within or adjacent to the elephant range in Tanzania”

Tanzania doesnt stop there. In addition to saying that they will not ask for more trade in the next 6 years after their proposed sale (which means they may ask at the end of that period), they also ask to be allowed to trade in raw hide and to sell live animals to “appropriate and acceptable destinations”.

Zambia on the other hand with a population of only 27,000 animals (population smaller than Kenya’s) wants more or less what Tanzania wants: its population moved from Appendix I to Appendix II so that they can trade in hunting trophies for non-commercial purposes, live animals, raw hides and trade in registered raw ivory. For the latter item, the Zambians propose a one-off sale of  21,692.23 kg as ivory from registered government-owned stocks, originating in the country.

So that is the long and short of it. Zambia and Tanzania clamoring for an opportunity to sell a total of 111,540.97 kg of ivory and the Kenya led block gunning for a 20 year moratorium.

According to a report in one of Kenya’s business newspapers, there is a strong likelihood of a fallout between Kenya and Tanzania in light of the two neighbours’ opposing ivory trade proposals sent to CITES ahead of the 15th Conference of Parties (CoP15) to be held in Doha, Quatar this coming March.

While Kenya has submitted a proposal for a total ban on ivory trade, Tanzania “is pushing for a new trading window to allow it to sell its ivory stockpile to fund conservation measures”, said the Business Daily newspaper. Kenyan wildlife officials see this as betrayal by their neighbours with whom they share ecosystems such as Amboseli (Kilimanjaro) and Masai Mara (Serengeti). Kenya believes that Tanzania’s proposal to move their elephants from Appendix I to Appendix II in the CITES rankings, thus allowing them to carry out a one off trade stockpiled ivory, will increase poaching in the named ecosystems.

Tanzania and Zambia are both pushing for an opportunity to sell 89,848 Kilograms and 21,692 kilograms of stockpiled ivory respectively. Zambia also wants to sell raw hides. This is confirmation that CITES ruling that allowed four southern Africa nations (Zimbabwe, Namibia, South Africa and Botswana) after the 14th CITES meeting in 2008 was bound to set a bad precedent.

Allowing Tanzania and Zambia to sell their ivory will signal other African states to ask CITES for permission to sell their legally held ivory stockpiles too. Thus setting the pattern of bad decisions into a spiral. The result will no doubt be a rise in demand and consequently an upsurge in poaching – possibly to the 1970s and 1980s levels that saw the population of elephants in Kenya cut down from 168,000 in 1969 to just 16,000 in 1989.

Kenyan officials have vowed to fight these proposals to the last man. Rallying behind Kenya in the fight to block the Tanzania/Zambia proposal are various African states including Congo, Ghana, Liberia, Mali, Rwanda and Sierra Leone. It would be untold victory for elephants should the pro-trade proposals are voted out and a total ban in all ivory trade is imposed.

So to CITES – and to our Tanzanian neighbours – don’t condemn Africa’s elephants to extinction over a few million dollars worth of ivory.

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.

The decline of Kenya’s lions has become the talk of the bloggosphere. Adam Shake on Twilight Earth blog reminds us taht the main threat facing Kenya’s lion is teh poisoning using Furadan, a problem that WildilfeDirect has been instrumental in raising awareness about.

And an education activist called @aureliom posted this on Twitter

Lion Dethroned, Bemoaned

Kenya losing 100 lions every year: conservation group

We’re losing lions in Kenya by the hundreds.

The Wildlife Service warns they could disappear

Within twenty years: a naturalist’s dreads.

It’s just that humans are moving in too near.

The open spaces globally invaded

Diminish land and corner animals everywhere:

The flora, fauna, jungles dense green bladed

Are disappearing, leaving beasts no home there.

Returning to the jungle king dethroned,

The reasons given for concerned protection

Are not the ones zoologists bemoaned:

Regreting safari loss, tourist defection!

Inhabitants of kingdom wild must exist:

How creeping human spread to cease, desist?

The Pride of Kenya campaign will raise enormous awareness in Kenya about how close our lions are to extinction. With only 2000 left, they could go extinct with in 20 years, or less. Please help us spread awarness about the plight of lions, tell your friends, send us your ideas, donations and any advice on how we can solve the problem of lion declines in Africa. Visit our lion blogs to find out more about innovative approaches to save wild lions in Kenya. Ewaso Lions, Lion Guradians and Predator Aware.

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A race against time

Published in the East African Standard

By Dauti Kahura

Conservationists and wildlife experts have sounded alarm bells over declining numbers of wildlife, which contributes 70 per cent of the country’s tourism earnings.

“What is happening with the wildlife is worse than the degradation of the Mau complex,” says Dr Joseph Ogutu, an ecologist with the International Livestock Research Institute (Ilri) based in Nairobi. “The decline of wildlife is real and frightening and we need to act fast,” he says.

Ogutu says the decline is in the protected and non-protected areas. Protected areas are the national parks and game reserves while the non-protected ones are pastoral lands and group ranches that surround parks and reserves. Two weeks ago, a conference in Beijing, China heard that the number of wildlife in East Africa is being depleted.

Dr Paula Kahumbu of Wildlife Direct, who attended the conference, says Kenya’s wildlife is at greater risk of eradication.

The country loses between four and five per cent of its wildlife annually. The Department of Remote Sensing and Resource Surveys (DRSRS), a Government department formerly known as Kenya Rangeland Ecological Monitoring Unit, says wildlife has declined by more than a third over the last 25 years.

Kenya has 23 parks, which fall directly under the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and 26 national reserves, which are under the district administration.

The country also has the largest bio-diversity of large animals in the world. Masai Mara has the largest concentration of wildlife and hosts 25 per cent of the national total, underscoring its importance.

With this resource under threat, conservationists say the Government should use all means to preserve it. Ogutu, who has been doing research in the Mara ecosystem since 1989, says drought, changing land use, climate change and poaching are a threat to the resource.

“KWS is in denial of what’s happening,” says Ogutu.

KWS’ TAKE

He says the organisation is only present in the national parks and the game reserves but absent at the group and private ranches. The unprotected areas hold about 65 per cent of the total wildlife and hence hold the key to the future. KWS has refuted claims of wildlife decline. Corporate Communications Manager Paul Udoto says KWS cannot conclusively say whether the animals are decreasing or increasingly generally. Udoto says one could only talk of specific species.

Ogutu lists the most affected parks as Masai Mara Game Reserve, an area that covers 5,600sq km, Tsavo East and West, Meru National Park, Nairobi National Park, which includes the Athi Kaputiei ecosystem. Lake Nakuru National Park has also been affected. The Athi Kaputiei, for instance, had one of the most spectacular migrations of wildebeest after Mara but the migration has all but fizzled. At the height of the migration, the animals ranged between 10,000-15,000 in the early 1990s.

“Today, it would be a spectacle if you spotted 300 wildebeests,” says Ogutu.

The situation at the Nairobi National Park, the only park within a 10km radius of a metropolis in the world, is severe. This is because of the drying up of its only permanent river, Athi River.

“Many crocodiles, hippos and fish have died,” says Ogutu. Poaching has also been cited as one of greatest factors leading to the decline. Richard Leakey, who is the founding director of KWS, says poaching could be on an unprecedented scale perhaps not experienced since the days of Wildlife Conservation and Management Department, the KWS predecessor.

“When former President Moi asked me 1989 to redirect the conservation of wildlife, poaching was rampant,” recalls Leakey.

He says black and white rhinos have been lost in large numbers in the protected and unprotected areas and KWS does not know the exact number of the species so it cannot quantify the loss. Leakey believes rangers could be abetting poaching. KWS senior wardens who sought anonymity concurred.

“Our rangers have become demoralised and demotivated, it is true they are abetting the wildlife poaching especially the big mammals like elephants and the rhino, said a senior warden at the KWS headquarters.

Human Intrusion

Tsavo East and West national parks have one third of the total number of all the elephants in the country. There are currently 38,000 elephants. Although the numbers have been on the increase, about 400 elephants are lost yearly, says Leakey.

Another major crisis that is threatening the existence of wildlife is the cattle incursion in the parks. Udoto concedes KWS is aware livestock owners are encroaching on the parks to the detriment of wildlife.

In the Nairobi National Park, it is estimated about 20,000 cows graze there at night.

Some livestock owners claim to pay Sh10 per cow to the rangers to be allowed into the park. Besides depleting food resources, livestock could carry diseases that are harmful to the wildlife.

Technorati : East African Standard, KWS, Kenya wildlife service, drought, kenya, lion, poaching, wildlife

In the past week or so, our bloggers have been reporting some tough situations in their areas of work. From death of elephants to financial crises and other ravages of drought and the global economic crisis.

CERCOPAN of Nigeria were last week tittering on the edge of a financial cliff as they needed to raise US$ 3,333 in order to keep their premises and continue rescuing primates caught up in the deep rooted west African bushmeat trade. They launched an appeal for funds and WildlifeDirect has been helping them spread the word. As of today, they had raised US$1395 which is quite impressive. They however need some US$1,938 before the end of August to secure the 120 primates’ only place of sanctuary from the bushmeat insanity.

The Amboseli Trust for Elephants (ATE) on Kenya is also facing a crisis with some of the most known African Elephants in the world starting to die because of the severe drought that is bringing Kenya and other east African states to their knees. They have lost valuable matriachs – and old friends – such as Echo, Grace, Isis, Leticia, Lucia, Odile, Ulla and Xenia in the last 1 year.  Echo, Isis, Leticia and Ulla have been matriarchs of their families since the 1970s. But the human hand is also dealing a blow to elephant conservation.

Poaching is taking out the large bulls. In the last 10 days three more big males have been killed. One, Ebenezer, had his tusks cut out with a power saw. That should send a warning alarm to wildlife authorities in Africa – today’s poachers are more advanced in their brutality.

To fight these poachers, ATE has supported two ranger bases in Amboseli area. Now they need a third and need to raise US$ 10,000 to fund building the base and to keep it running. Please help them.

The bushmeat trade in western Africa is really messy and two young victims of this grim trade have arrived at Tacugama in Sierra Leone. This is in addition to the three that arrived recently and all together Tacugama has in their care 96 orphaned chimps. They are, quite literally, bursting at their seems with chimp orphans. That makes it all the more needy for funds to rehabilitate these little ones until they are ready to get back into the forest and fend for themselves. You would help them wouldn’t you?

While all this is going on, we at WildlifeDirect want to keep this channel open so that you and your friends can respond to these emergencies and day to day needs of the wildlife of Africa, Asia and South America.  We also need your direct support so that we can pay Internet bills, electricity, rent and staff who keep these blogs working. We want you to continue enjoying the happy moments with our bloggers. To laugh with them, and to cry with them when times are hard. After all, you don’t want to wake up one morning and find that there is no WildlifeDirect. I believe you would be worried about all the poor defenseless wildlife that have been benefiting from the existence of WildlifeDirect. Please don’t let this happen.

The drought in Kenya is having terrible consequences for everyone especially in arid areas which are sending out appeals for help.

Wildlife is also at risk. Today, yet again, I came across herds of starving cattle in the Nairobi National Park.  The problem is provoking a muted response especially from KWS who seem hesitant to chase them out.  Some people think that this is the right “for humanitarian response”, and I’m hopping mad.According to the IUCN, a national park is meant to be a protected area where natural ecosystems are not materially altered by human exploitation or occupation and where the competent authority (KWS) takes steps to prevent or eliminate such impacts. National Parks are used for inspirational, educative, cultural and recreative purposes.

The KWS Vision is “To be a world leader in wildlife conservation” and it’s Mission is “To sustainably conserve and manage Kenya’s wildlife and its habitat in collaboration with stakeholders for posterity”.

SO, WHAT ARE LIVESTOCK DOING IN KENYA’S NATIONAL PARKS?

Even though Livestock is critical to our economy and contributes 12% of the GDP, the Kenyan government has failed Kenyan herders. Pastoralist occupy the ASAL areas (arid and semi arid lands) which make up two thirds of the country’s surface area. But very little has been done to help them. Historically the colonial government dispossessed land from pastoral communities, and our current government has been complacent and allows our political elite to benefit from the status quo by serving their private interests.

I believe that corruption in public institutions may be the greatest cause of Kenya’s economic decline, environmental degradation, and deepening poverty for millions of people.   It has created a humanitarian situation, for many Kenyans livestock keeping is a matter of survival.

This is why every time there are problems in the northern range lands, like droughts, conflict and disease, cattle are herded into the parks as a refuge.

KWS may in fact be powerless to stop them unless they take on a political war.

But does this effect conservation? Should we allow cattle in the parks?

I say “Hell No!! Chase them out as fast as possible!”  You may think me heartless in demanding that KWS drive the starving cattle and poor communities out of the parks. But  the long term consequence will cripple us – look at the devastating implications of corruption and impunity as a result of the destruction of the Mau forests.  Kenya’s entire economy is suffering and some 2,100 people will soon be homeless because of the greed of a few politicians.

There are also short term consequences of allowing cattle into our parks during droughts. Tourism is the backbone of this faltering economy, can we afford to ask visitors to pay $60 dollars per visit to see this?

Cattle taken into park after closing hours – Photo taken 6.20 pm last night at Nairobi National Park

Or this?

Photo taken 8.30 am this morning in Nairobi National Park despite several reports to KWS

Instead of this?

To me the answer to the cattle in the park problem is simple. Would the KWS director, or any of our ministers allow these sick starving cattle onto their personal property where their grazing would eat entire crops and destroy flower garden leaving a dust bowl and lots of parasites and diseases? Of course not!

Why is it that conservation areas are seen as opportunities to soften the devastating impacts our other failed policies? Numerous reports have concluded that the livestock ministry and related government departments, as well as our greedy political elite are  responsible for the crisis facing our cattle today. They created this problem, they must solve it.

In my opinion, letting cattle into the parks will not solve the problem any more than loosening the belt of an obese man will help him manage his weight.

What do you think? How can we send that message loud and clear that the Parks should not be used as emergency fodder for livestock during extreme droughts?

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.