Baraza

Category: Africa, Emergency appeals, Ivory, bushmeat, chimpanzee, drought, elephants, poaching, wildlife trade, wildlifedirect | Date: Aug 05 2009 | By: Maina

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.

Tags: Africa, bushmeat, chimp, DRC, drought, elephants, Kenya, Nigeria, poaching, wildlife trade, wildlifedirect

3 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: chimpanzee, enforcement, poaching, wildlife trade | Date: Mar 20 2009 | By: admin

Friends,

I just received this email with good news from Congo Brazzaville that I wanted to share with you.  There are times when we get very depressed about the situation facing wildlife in Africa but then there are times when we realise that there is good reason for hope.

Paula

Deal all,

The Brazzaville court has passed the first sentence against a wildlife
dealer. The dealer (a chimp dealer arrested in December 2008) has to
stay one year in prison (plus three months since December) and pay
1,100,000 Fcfa.

We hope this first case against a wildlife dealer in Republic of Congo
will help us for the several next ones (nine cases since September
plus one in May 2009).

We have to thank the LAGA NGO (and especially its Director Ofir Drori
and one of his assistant Josias Sipehouo) for their help, the great
work they did and the motivation they gave. The PALF (Projet d’Appui à
l’Application de la Loi sur la Faune Sauvage), managed by The Aspinall
Foundation and WCS, have received a support (15,000 US Dollars) from
UNEP and now from USFWS (almost 50,000 US Dollars). The PALF has also
received an official support from the Ministry of Forest Economy and
the partnership is working.

We will progressively have to develop its activities in the whole
Republic of Congo.

Sincerely,
–
Luc Mathot
Coordonnateur

Fondation Aspinall
www.totallywild.net
Projet Protection des Gorilles - Congo
www.ppg-congo.org
13977 Brazzaville

Tags: bushmeat, chimpanzee, Great apes, LAGA, Ofir, poaching, Republic of Congo, wildlife trade, wildlifedirect

One response so far

Category: Ivory, elephants, enforcement, poaching, wildlife trade | Date: Nov 18 2008 | By: Maina

A coordinated swoop on illegal ivory traders and poachers across 5 African countries yielded one ton of poached ivory and 57 illegal dealers this weekend. The swoop, coordinated by INTERPOL and involving more than 300 personnel from the Lusaka Agreement Task Force (LATF) local police, wildlife authorities and intelligence agencies in the 5 countries, is being described as the biggest crackdown on illegal wildlife trade in the world.

The operation - a result of 4 months of intensive intelligence work which started in June 2008 - was conducted in Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Uganda and Zambia. In Kenya alone, forces consisting of INTERPOL, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), LATF, the National Security Intelligence Services and local police bagged 36 suspects and seized 113 pieces of ivory items weighing 358-kilograms. The Kenya Police and KWS are still tracking four suspects who slipped through the highly coordinated dragnet.

The huge Kenyan operation is summarized thus by the KWS:

A total of 10 KWS field units in areas most prone to illegal ivory trade and trafficking in Kenya participated in the operation. The Kenya Police, Lusaka Agreement Task force, National Security Intelligence Service, Customs Department, the Judiciary and the INTERPOL supported KWS. The operation was conducted in Nairobi, Amboseli, Tsavo East, Mombasa, Isiolo, Marsabit, Narok, Maralal, Nakuru and Aberdares.

The law enforcement agencies in all 5 countries had decided to synchronize the operation in each country so that any suspect who tried to cross borders would be sniffed out and stung at the airports or other crossing points. The approach seems to have worked.

According to the INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble, Operation Baba is the first in a series of operations of this nature being planned worldwide.

“International co-operation is key to law enforcement today. With the ‘globalisation’ of criminal syndicates, people who abide by the law have no alternative than to confront those syndicates in the international arena,” said Mr. Noble. “This is where INTERPOL’s core function of operational police support services, which can facilitate co-operation between law enforcement agencies in multiple countries, proves its worth.”

I commend all the law enforcement agencies that were involved in this operation and all those who supported the operations either financially, tactically or otherwise. I think with more of these kind of operations in the future, we are finally headed somewhere in the fight against elephant poaching.

Quick Facts:
Operation Baba was so named in honor of Ranger Gilbert Baba, a Ghanaian ranger who was shot and killed by poachers in the line of duty some 10 years ago

The Lusaka Agreement Task Force was created in 1994 by governments in this region as a mechanism for regional co-operation to fight illegal trade in wild animals and plants.

Tags: elephant, INTERPOL, Ivory, KWS, Lusaka Agreement Task Force, poaching, wildlife trade

3 responses so far

Category: Forests, bushmeat, poaching, wildlife trade | Date: Nov 17 2008 | By: Maina

A US geneticist from the University of Arizona is planning to use DNA testing to study the roaring bushmeat trade in west Africa with a view of identifying “species that can be harvested sustainably”.

According to a report on KTar.com, the geneticist, Hans-Werner Herrmann, will analyze the bushmeat at village markets, track how it got there and study how the information could be used to better manage affected wildlife populations. He hopes that finding species that can be hunted sustainably will curtail poaching and halt wildlife decimation particularly in African forests.

According to Herrmann, rural Africans are driven into bushmeat hunting and trade by extreme poverty and he cannot just say it is bad to hunt without answering the poverty question.

Roughly 1 million tonnes of bushmeat are harvested in the badly ravaged African forests. a CIFOR report that Dr Richard Leakey felt had erred in its recommendations says that 80% of proteins and fats in rural Africans’ diets come from bushmeat. This is a big problem and solutions to bushmeat hunting need to be found before all wildlife becomes extinct.

The study will involve African researchers in Cameroon taking DNA samples from bushmeat in the markets, and sending it to Arizona for analysis and identification. They will then track how the meat got to the market and study how the information can be used to help in management of the affected wildlife populations.

How useful this study will be is subject to debate. Particularly, when they find wildlife species that they perceive to be “bushmeat viable”, does it mean that they will recommend legalization of bushmeat hunting? Perhaps we need this research to prove that there is no way bushmeat can be harvested sustainably.

There are three things that make sustainable hunting virtualy impossible: one, there is not enough wildlife, two, there are too many humans on the planet, and three, our African governments have problems implementing anti-poaching legislation. To me, these are the fundamental questions: not whether wildlife can be harvested sustainably.

Perhaps the researchers - who by the way have applied for a $1-million from the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) for the study - should use these funds to find out how we can prevent the malignant human population growth from overrunning the planet and all wild things that live in it. Better still, these funds could be used to find alternatives sources of protein and income (poverty reduction) for the rural poor in Africa. Alternatives that are not bushmeat.

For wildlife populations to recover, and to avoid imminent mass extinctions, all manner of wildlife trade needs to be stopped - at the very least, as a precaution. We don’t really understand wildlife population dynamics that well to sustainably use it. We haven’t yet fathomed the complex interaction between humans and wildlife to say that we are in control of hunting and trade.

We know a few things though. One, bushmeat hunting has already resulted in the empty forest syndrome, where the forest vegetation is relatively intact but no wild animals live there. Two, governments have good legislation intended to control bushmeat poaching but implementation is weak. Three, losing our wildlife is not good for the planet.

With these truths in mind, perhaps what we need is to stop all human-centric arguments that perpetuate eating of wildlife and start focusing on finding ways to improve wildlife’s welfare.

Tags: Africa, bushmeat, CIFOR, DNA, extinction, forest, hunting, richard leakey, UNEP, University of Arizona, wildlife, wildlife trade

8 responses so far

Category: Somalia, poaching, wildlife trade | Date: Nov 11 2008 | By: Maina

Yes, it’s hard to believe, but two websites are reporting that military helicopters are leaving the battleships anchored off the Somalia coast to combat Somali pirates, and getting into the mainland to hunt wildlife illegally .

According to a report published today in one of the websites (Garoweonline.com), foreign choppers, which the the local Somali elders have not properly identified, arrived in three separate days and left with live specimens of ostrich and deer. The choppers were later seen landing in warships offshore. Although the elders have not been able to infallibly identify whose warships these are, one was seen to be flying the American flag.

In the other site (Mareeq.com), a reporter, Abdi Guled - despite writing in very bad English - almost certainly believes that the choppers bear the American banner. According to Guled’s report, the local authorities in the pirate infested central Somalia region are colluding with the purported hunters. Apparently, the local chiefs have signed contracts with foreign agencies to transact this illegal business.

The report on Garoweonline says that a local elder in the Maduq region of central Somalia, Mr Mohamed Hussein Warsame, has been interviewed by reporters from the BBC Somali Service about the trade. I have searched for the report on BBC website but I have not yet found it. AllAfrica.com, an aggregator of African news has also carried the report from Garoweonline.

While these might be outrageous allegations, we cannot rule out the possibility of this happening. We have seen foreign military and work forces getting involved in illegal activities in their outposts before. We have all heard the Chinese workforce in Africa being blamed for the escalation of ivory poaching in DRC, Zimbabwe and other states with dysfunctional governments.

If indeed this is happening, then it would be quite a shame. I hope the alleged BBC reporters who have the story can publish it so we can quote from a source perceived to be less biased. A source with a global voice. I hope other independent or big media house journalist can do an independent investigation into that matter. As long as they don’t get kidnapped by Somalia gunmen.

Tags: battleships, DRC, hunting, Madug, pirates, poaching, Somalia, US troops, wildlife, wildlife trade, Zimbabwe

5 responses so far

Category: China, Ivory, Zimbabwe, elephants, wildlife trade | Date: Nov 10 2008 | By: Maina

Our fears that the one-off ivory auction by four southern Africa states to China and Japan was not going to end well may come true. Not that that is any cause for us to wear a smirk and say “we told you so”, but a time for us to ask CITES to open their eyes.

There are reports in a Zimbabwean newspaper saying that Robert Mugabe’s government - cash strapped and hungry for foreign exchange to pay for imports - is planning to have the Chinese government pay for the ivory with guns Mugabe’s people ordered just before this year’s Zimbabwean presidential run-off. Apparently, Mugabe was facing an imminent end to his three-decade grip on power and decided to buy guns to wage war against the opposition should he loose the elections. The best place to buy these guns was from China since they are not participating in the arms embargo by western nations on Zimbabwe.

The report, published in the Zim Daily, indicate that part of the $480,000 Zimbabwe raised when they auctioned 3.5 tons of ivory last week is earmarked as payment for a cache of military hardware set to be flown into the capital Harare soon. The reports also indicate that in the run up to the ivory auction, “substantial quantities of high caliber weapons” had disappeared from the armory of Zimbabwe’s department of parks and wildlife near State House, Harare. During the same period, 200 elephants are reported to have been killed in the Zambezi Valley bordering Zambia. The Zimbabwe government blames this carnage on foreign animal rights groups which “want to thwart Mugabe’s bid to have CITES relax its trade rules”.

These reports have put the “fear of Mugabe” in conservationists who are now worried that Zimbabwe’s claim of being protector of the elephant is just a sham. Official Zimbabwe reports indicate that the country has 70,000 elephants in the wild, but experts think this is just window dressing by the government to get CITES to approve their proposal to sell all their alleged 20 tons of ivory stockpiles. The head of the wildlife department, Brigadier Albert Kanunga, a retired army officer, had lobbied CITES to allow them to sell 10 tons of ivory but only 3.5 tons were approved.

It is alleged that the ivory auctioned by Zimbabwe was flown out of Harare Airport on Thursday 6 November. If, then, the ivory for guns scam is true, the Chinese will bring Mugabe the guns sooner than latter. Apparently, an earlier shipping of Chinese military equipment bound for Harare had been turned away in the South African port of Durban. That could be the reason why China will fly in the new cache of arms.

Eight years ago in July 2000, a Nairobi based German wildlife conservation organization, ECOTERRA had revealed that Mugabe had sold 8 tons of ivory to China in exchange for firearms. According to the report on BNet website, the ivory had been flown out of Zimbabwe through Libya.

With such a record, it would be feasible to believe that last weeks CITES-backed auction will indeed be used to pay for more guns and ammo some of which - given the mysterious disappearance of arms from the wildlife department’s armory and consequent upsurge of elephant poaching- could be used in “harvesting” more ivory for Mugabe’s government. Which then negates the CITES claim that one-off sales will help elephant protection by reducing the attractiveness of poaching and investing the funds into conservation.

Moreover, Zambian and Senegalese middlemen operating in Zimbabwe organize underground deals through the “close-knit Chinese community” in South Africa to service the high demand for illegal ivory in China. This would imply that even South Africa, the allegorical “Big Brother” of Africa, is not fully in control of the ivory situation. In as much as Big Brother may have a tab of it’s own ivory stockpiles, they cannot rule out being used as a conduit for illegal ivory from tattered Zimbabwe. In short, the entire African continent is not ready for these - in Dr Richard Leakey’s words - ill advised one-off auctions.

In the end, what will save the elephant, in my view, is not how cheap ivory becomes - a la CITES - but how well we convince ordinary Chinese, Japanese and other Asian communities that they can practice their cultural beliefs without Ivory. Remove the demand for ivory and let the elephant roam the sunny grasslands of Africa without fear - like they did for millennia gone by. Legally selling government-held stockpiles will not kill demand.

Tags: China, CITES, elephant, guns, Ivory, ivory auctions, Japan, Mugabe, poaching, richard leakey, wildlife trade, Zimbabwe

One response so far

Category: China, Ivory, Trade, elephants, wildlife trade | Date: Oct 28 2008 | By: Maina

Today, 28 October 2008, Namibia opened bidding for the 9 tonnes of ivory stockpiles it wants to auction in the controversial CITES backed one-off sale. The media has been shut out of this auction. According to a report appearing in the Namibian, a national paper, The Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET) never made an official announcement about the international auction. Most people would wonder if the government is ashamed or it’s trying to hide something.

Tonnes of applications and requests by international and national media houses piled into the Ministry’s in boxes but nobody was going to bother. When asked on Monday, the Deputy Environment and Tourism Minister Leon Jooste told media representatives that “It is too late to change the Ministry’s strategy with regard to the ivory auction.”

Local and regional conservation NGOs will also not be let into the auction. A request by the southern Africa office of the International Association for Animal Welfare (IFAW) to be allowed observer status was curtly rejected some two weeks ago. “The [MET] official just flatly denied us the possibility,” Christina Pretorius, Programme Manager of IFAW Southern Africa, is quoted as having told The Namibian on Monday.

Botswana will sell it’s 44 tonnes on Friday 30 October while South Africa, with the largest sale of 51 tonnes, and ZIMBABWE, 4 tonnes, will follow suit on 2 and 5 November respectively. In total, a whooping 108 tonnes of ivory will enter the market. The effect of this massive influx of ivory in the Chinese and Japanese markets, according to most conservationists, will be a corresponding increase in poaching to affect the rest of Africa. Traffic, the trade monitoring body under CITES however maintains that there is no evidence to support these allegations. Whatever happened to taking precautions?

The southern Africa states participating in this one off sale of ivory stockpiles first approved - in principle - by CITES in 2002, made $ 5-million in the last one off sale some 9 years ago in 1999. This year, according to the BBC, they expect to make $ 30-million - quite an increase occasioned just by the entry of China into the fray. They say this money will go towards elephant conservation. Traffic says that the ivory will not leave China and Japan into other markets. The two governments have promised to ensure that that does not happen but that is another story. There is evidence - overwhelming evidence - that illegal ivory trade is still alive and far outsells the legal trade.

The wisdom of this sale is quite questionable. If elephants are still endangered in most African states, then there is no logic really to let the sale of ivory - with the potential of fanning poaching - to anyone. Inasmuch as the data that Traffic presented does not show any increase in illegal trade, the fact remains that illegal trade will not go away just because the stockpiles have been sold and $30-million is injected into conservation (and this - if the money does indeed end up in conservation - will be in states where elephant populations are already growing).

Moreover, reports from Zimbabwe indicate that a large percentage of the wildlife has been eaten by desperate country folk or hunted illegally by unscrupulous safari hunting companies as the country’s governance sunk into an abyss. How can anyone justify allowing Zimbabwe to sell ivory? Besides, who knows when South Africa, Namibia and Botswana would end up with a dysfunctional government resulting in massive poaching and - perhaps - eventual extinction of elephants?

The insertion that selling these stockpiles will help conservation is myopic. This sale will only keep demand for ivory alive. And when the southern states have no more ivory to sell, who will feed China’s growing hunger for ivory? Is it not the rest of Africa where elephants are not properly protected? Is it not poaching?

One Kevin C from Taipei commenting on the BBC article puts things rather candidly:

Sounds like It is also a very good idea to sell drug stockpiles in police office. It will reduce the market value and make it less profitable to smuggle and produce it underground.

You are always welcome to have your say. This is a matter that needs all your input. Tell us what you think.

Tags: auction, China, CITES, hunting, Ivory, ivory stockpiles, Japan, Namibia, poaching, southern Africa, wildlife trade, Zimbabwe

9 responses so far

Category: China, Ivory, Trade, elephants, wildlife trade | Date: Jul 30 2008 | By: Maina

In an earlier post, I reported that the US is second only to China in the size of the ivory blackmarket. Well, although most American buyers were said to be unaware of the legality of their ivory purchases, it turns out that there are glaring legal loopholes that traders are exploiting to fan the blackmarket.

Acclaimed wildlife trade investigators, Dr Esmond Bradley Martin and Daniel Stiles, spent several months in the US visiting 16 of America’s main towns and cities where ivory is sold between 2006 and 2007. Their report, Ivory Markets in the USA, has just been published. The report shows that even though the US is far ahead in its control of illegal ivory trade compared to Africa and Asia (US only comparable to Europe), its large population and vast buying power renders stringent control of ivory trade critical.

And there are controls. The US Endangered Species Act (ESA) and various other legislation conform with CITES stipulations but there is leeway that can be exploited. Antique worked ivory (at least 100 years old), for example, can legally be imported and sold (according to both CITES and US laws). This leaves the market wide open for fake antiques (fabricated using smoke, dyes and exposure to heat and acidity). Trophy tusks can also be imported legally from the southern African countries that allow hunting but the raw ivory cannot be used commercially. This opens shady alleys where ivory from anywhere can easily find its way into the market with fake documents of origin. The same law allows sale of trophy tusks imported before July 1975, when CITES came into force, which again makes it that much easier to sell all and any purported trophy.

Twenty-two states have integrated federal wildlife laws into state laws and there is generally good cooperation between state and federal agencies. When wildlife specimens originate outside the US, however, law enforcement agencies find it hard to deal with and ivory is no exception. “Once ivory enters the US, it can move free of inspection within the 50 states. Neither state nor federal agencies regularly inspect shops or antiques fairs for wildlife products.” say Martin and Stiles in an article published in Swara magazine.

In a country where 24,000 worked ivory items on sale in 657 outlets were recorded by this particular investigation, it is no wonder that the market should be second only to China’s statistics. Of the 16 cities investigated, New York had by far the most ivory for sale: a minimum of 11,376 ivory items in 124 outlets, which is almost 5 times higher than the second highest, San Fransisco Bay Area with 2,777 items in 49 outlets. Greater LA records a close 2,605 items although in more outlets (170) closing the top three. Ivory workers are however difficult to find since they mostly work from home and are widely scattered throughout the 50 state colossus.

Interestingly, most of the recent imports of ivory into the US came from China! Since the US has never conducted any census on ivory and maintains no stockpile, it is difficult to know how much ivory is out there.

Granted, the US authorities hold the record for the highest number of ivory seizures in the world. But they also seize large quantities of illegal drugs but that does not mean that they are winning the war on drugs. Illegal ivory, like these drugs, still gets in.

The problem is that although CITES resolutions have called for various actions to control ivory trade, the US has implemented none of them. Particularly, according to the article by Martin and Stiles in Swara magazine, the US should pay attention to these actions:
1) Prohibit the unregulated domestic sale of ivory. the owner of the ivory should prove lawful possession
2) Register or license all importers, wholesalers, and retailers dealing in ivory items
3) Establish nationwide procedure, especially in retail outlets, informing tourists and other non-nationals not to purchase ivory in cases where it is illegal for them to import it into their own home countries
4) Introduce recording and inspection procedures to enable government agencies to monitor the flow of ivory within the country

Tags: CITES, elephants, Ivory, US, wildlife trade

No responses yet

Category: China, wildlife trade | Date: Jul 22 2008 | By: Maina

This may not be news to you but I find it rather disturbing that the US has stayed up there in the list of leading centers for illegal wildlife trade despite the growth in the number of conservation conscious individuals.

An AFP report I stumbled upon in the ABC site (dated 10 June) quotes the US Assistant Secretary of State for Environment, Claudia McMurray, saying that China is the largest market for illegal wildlife products, but, disturbingly, the US comes second in the $10-Billion a year trade. So, first, we can confirm what we’ve always known: China is bad for wildlife. Second, it is time for you to carefully consider what you, as an individual, can do to help your country get a good name, and most important, save wildlife.

Perhaps this should help. The US market is not driven by deliberate and insensitive demand for wildlife products but by lack of information about which products are illegal. Most ”culprits” of the trade in US buy their products while traveling, online, or in shops in the US. Most of the time, they think the products are perfectly legal, which is not the case.

So why is the US staying up there with the bad boys? Yes, you guessed right. Traditional CHINESE medicine is gaining popularity in the US and nowadays it is not just being practiced by people of Asian origin. All sorts of people are administering and consuming this service. Americans are also into live exotic pets, which disturbs the equation further. But again, they believe it is legal.

US Special Envoy for wildlife trafficking issues, actress Bo Derek, is quoted saying, “It was very embarrassing for me to find out that the US is number two in consuming endangered wildlife,”

So what is your role as a caring and conscious American? Don’t leave the entire awareness creation process to your government - for they have launched a campaign to educate people on these issues. Go ahead and tell your neighbor that having a pet Iguana might actually be illegal. Tell them about the scale of illegal wildlife trade worldwide and help them form the graphic image of wildlife slaughter in Africa, Asia and South America to supply the market. Tell them about the wars fueled by the competition for the exctraction of these resources, and the women and children that suffer the consequences. That should convince them.

But who will educate China? Am sure there are many Chinese people who have resolved to change their countrymen’s perception about wildlife, and they are really working at it. Let us encourage them. Help them in any way you can. We cannot give up on China. Giving up on China, is giving up on wildlife.

Now, go do your country - and wildlife - some good.

Tags: China, US, wildlife, wildlife trade

15 responses so far