Baraza

Category: Africa, South Africa, Uganda, big cats, hunting, tourism | Date: Oct 19 2009 | By: Maina

Recently, as is usually the case, a passionate discussion erupted here at Baraza following a post about Uganda’s sport hunting plan. While I believe that Uganda’s plan to get into sport hunting is unwise, not all agreed with me. Although the ‘to hunt or not to hunt’ debate is not anywhere near the end, when a new voice comes in, a new view emerges. Most of the time, this new view continues to discredit this barbaric and unnecessary so called ’sport’.

A lion in Kenya (photo courtesy of Ewaso Lions)

Some time ago, an article appeared on Bloomberg.com showing the dilemma that South Africa has found itself in after a court ruling more or less banned canned the so called hunting. Now they are grappling with some 3,000 odd lions that have been bred in captivity for the sole purpose of being shot by foreign tourists at the price of  $22,000 per lion. As Mike Cohen writes on Blomberg:

“Lions bred for hunting are often shot after just a few days in the wild. In captivity they are mostly fed on donkey meat bought from rural communities. After their release from breeding cages they catch and eat game that the farmers have acquired for their estates.”

This case exposes one of the hidden vices of sport hunting - canned hunting - a cruel and mindless practice that should never have seen the light of day.

When the sport hunting becomes popular in Uganda for instance, the chances are that many ranchers will want to convert their land into wildlife producing factories where, say, lions can be bred for shooting or antelopes can be bred for feeding the lions. Eventually, someone will challenge canned hunting in Uganda and they will find themselves in the same situation that South Africa is in presently.

Kenyans are currently bothered by there being only 2,100 lions in the country and that if they continue losing the lions at the current rate of 100 lions a year, they will have no lions in 20 years. South Africa on the other hand has more lions than Kenya but they are hunting them at a higher rate, and Tanzania is even worse. Cohen says

More than 300 lions are hunted in South Africa every year, with trophy hunters coming from countries including the U.S., Russia and Spain. That makes South Africa the second-biggest destination for lion hunting after Tanzania, where wild lions are shot. About 1,000 lions are hunted each year in Africa. 

You should note that South Africa has not stopped hunting of lions. Only canned hunting - which more or leas means the captive breeding of lions for the sole purpose of being shot - has been made illegal by the court of law. Of course, the greedy business people who make millions from this ugly business have appealed to have the court ruling overturned. What did you expect?

They are even using the prospects of losing some 5,000 jobs as a reason why canned hunting should be reinstated. They even have an association for that. Cohen writes:

The South African Predator Breeders Association has warned that the judgment may shut an industry that employs 5,000 people because farmers can’t afford to keep lions on their estates for long periods of time due to the cost of the antelopes they would eat. It also argued that the lions may need to be euthanized as the legislation reduced their commercial value.  

Let’s see how the court handles this.

Tags: Africa, Bloomberg.com, canned hunting, captive breeding, hunting, Kenya, Lion, South Africa, sport hunting, Uganda

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 26 2008 | By: baraza

This is from the official CITES webstie Geneva, 24 October 2008 - it makes me feel ill

The Secretary-General of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), Mr Willem Wijnstekers, will visit Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe during the next two weeks to supervise closely the ivory sales that the member States of the Convention agreed to in June 2007, in The Hague.

On the margins of the four ivory auctions, Mr Wijnstekers will also hold talks with Chinese and Japanese authorities, as well as traders, about the details of further supervisory activities of the Secretariat upon arrival of the ivory in those countries and thereafter.

The proceeds of the sales must be used exclusively for elephant conservation and community development programmes within or adjacent to the elephant range. The revenues are expected to boost the countries’ capacity to conserve biodiversity, strengthen enforcement controls and contribute to the livelihoods of the rural people in southern Africa. All this without affecting negatively African and Asian elephant populations.

Background information

Under an agreement reached in The Hague in 2007, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe were authorized to make a single sale of a total of 108 tons of government-owned ivory. The following quantities of raw ivory registered by 31 January 2007 have been approved for sale: Botswana: 43,682.91 kg, Namibia: 9,209.68 kg, South Africa: 51,121.8 kg, and Zimbabwe: 3,755.55 kg.

Elephant populations of the four countries are in Appendix II of CITES, which means that, even though they are not necessarily now threatened with extinction, the trade in their products is strictly regulated. Recent studies concluded that over 312,000 elephants live in these four countries and that their number has increased in recent years.

The CITES Standing Committee, which oversees the implementation of CITES between the major conferences, gave the go-ahead to the one-off sale of ivory last July by approving China as the second importing country. Japan had been approved earlier.

Each sale is to consist of a single shipment per destination and may only go to China and Japan, whose internal controls on ivory sales comply with the required verification standards established by CITES for this one-off sale.

Between March and April 2008, the CITES Secretariat conducted missions to these four countries and verified that the declared ivory stocks had been properly registered by 31 January 2007; consisted solely of ivory of legal origin (excluding seized ivory and ivory of unknown origin); and had been marked according to CITES requirements. They also verified that their weights were in accordance with the relevant records. This involved the checking and comparison of computerized databases and thousands of paper records, as well as the physical inspection and examination of hundreds of randomly-selected tusks and ivory pieces. In each case, the findings of the audits were satisfactory.

The CITES Secretariat is monitoring the Chinese and Japanese domestic trade controls to ensure that unscrupulous traders do not take this opportunity to sell ivory of illegal origin.

The 2007 African agreement stipulates that after these shipments have been completed, no new proposals for further sales from the four countries concerned are to be considered by CITES during a resting period of nine years that will commence as soon as the new sales have been completed.

Tags: China, CITES, elephant ivory, elephant poaching, ivory sales, Japan, South Africa, Zimbabwe

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jun 11 2008 | By: admin

The Times Online have just published a frightening article about the evidence of human destruction of Africa. According to the article, Achim Steiner the Secretary General of UNEP (which is based in Nairobi!), said there were many examples of how action has been taken to restore the environment and he said those projects should act as beacons. But he said the outlook for many areas and the people who live there remain poor unless remedial work is undertaken.

In a related article Reuters reports that WWF is also raising an alarm that Africa is running out of resources. This is all very worrying since the bulk of funds for conservation are spent in the northern hemisphere and developed countries.

Meanwhile in South Africa sweeping changes have been proposed in their legislation will allow prosecutors to charge directors and managers of companies for environmental impacts like pollution. South Africa often seems to lead the way on such developments but the new legislation is rather confusing because the government will apparently also claim legal ownership of all wild animals in state parks and nature reserves, and tighten up measures to recapture animals which escape on to private land.

It also intends to scrap the National Environment Advisory Forum and the Committee for Environmental Co-ordination. These public public participation committees will be replaced by appointed boards. Smells like a rat to me. How much do you want to bet that this new legislation will not be adopted?

Also in South Africa is one of the most brutal attacks on wildlife that I’ve ever heard of. According to Pretoria News, teenagers set their dogs on wildlife in a zoo killing 38 birds. This is the second time in two weeks that this has happened. The authorities have not caught the culprits of this brutality.
“Some of the birds had been completely ripped apart. Others had been bitten badly but were still alive, so we had to put them down to spare them the pain.”

Crookes Brothers, the owners of Crocworld, are offering a reward to any person who can provide information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators.

Anyone with information on the incident can telephone Umkomaas police Detective Inspector Maya Chetty at 039 973 1011.

Tags: Environmental destruction, environmental legislation, polluter pays, South Africa, wildlife killing

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