Campaign Update: 05 April 2007
THE ELEPHANT DEBATE AT COP14: THE NEED TO THINK BIG
As the elephant debate heats up for COP14 and the one-off ivory sales loom, levels of illegal ivory trade continue to rise, prompting new calls for the adoption of an holistic approach to elephant conservation and ivory trade
In June 2007, the 14th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP14) to CITES (Conference on the International Trade in Endangered Species) takes place in The Hague, the Netherlands. The meeting promises to be wrought with contention over the ivory trade issue, as Botswana, Namibia and South Africa seek the final go-ahead to sell their ivory stockpiles to CITES-approved trading partners. In addition, all three countries have submitted new proposals in a bid to further relax current restrictions on international trade in ivory and other elephant products.
At present, only Japan has been approved as a designated buyer, subject to the provision of a satisfactory progress report on the implementation of their domestic ivory trade controls at the next CITES Standing Committee meeting. This takes place immediately prior to COP. The only other outstanding condition of the ivory stockpile sales related to the submission of MIKE (Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants) data from a number of Asian sites. This was reportedly submitted at the end of 2006, making it extremely likely that the sales will be given the go ahead at the forthcoming meeting.
China is also seeking approval as a designated buyer and, although the CITES Secretariat highly commended China’s new domestic trade laws in 2005, they have so far refrained from recommending them as a trading partner. China is lobbying hard for this decision to be overturned, anxious not to be excluded from the imminent sales.
All this is taking place against a backdrop of a steady increase in global levels of illegal ivory trade. According to EIA’s records, since the last COP in October 2004, over 32 tonnes of ivory has been seized in more than 150 incidents worldwide, representing in excess of 5,000 poached elephants. Of these, the vast majority have been intercepted en route to South East Asia, where market demand for ivory continues to flourish. A recent report by Professor Samuel Wasser of the University of Washington in Seattle states that between August 2005 and the same month in 2006, over 23 tonnes was seized alone. Enforcement agencies typically put the percentage of ivory seized over that which goes undetected at between 10-20%, which means that the true number of elephant being poached is far greater.
A second emerging and equally alarming trend relates to the increase in the quantities of ivory being seized in individual incidents. Since 2005, there have been at least seven seizures of between 1.8 and 6 tonnes of ivory (listed below). Not only does this indicate the existence of significant black markets in South East Asia, including China and Japan, it also implies the presence of sophisticated and well-resourced criminal networks, responsible for procuring, trafficking and – in many cases - laundering the illegal ivory onto legal markets. Demand for ivory in South East Asia is increasing, with a kilogram reportedly now fetching up to USD $750 in China. Clearly, ivory trafficking is a highly profitable business and, given the current low detection rates and lack of enforcement, the incentive to stop is virtually non-existent.
Large seizures since 2005
September 2005: 6,000kg of ivory seized in the Philippines on a shipping container reportedly originating from Zambia; the vessel had departed from Tanzania
May 2006: 1,800kg seized in China
May 2006: 3,900kg intercepted in Hong Kong SAR on board a ship from Cameroon
May 2006: 4,000kg confiscated in Zimbabwe, allegedly destined for China
August 2006: 2,800kg seized in Japan on board a ship from Malaysia
July 2006: 3,060kg intercepted in Taiwan, originating from Tanzania
July 2006: 2,158kg confiscated in Taiwan, again originating from Tanzania
EIA believes that the forthcoming ivory sales only threaten to exacerbate the current negative situation. Botswana, Namibia and South Africa were granted permission to sell their ivory stockpiles (20, 10 and 30 tonnes respectively) in 2002 having demonstrated to the satisfaction of the CITES parties that their elephant populations are healthy and well protected. According to the data provided, elephant numbers in these countries have grown dramatically in recent years, so much so that Botswana and South Africa have recently mooted the possibility of reintroducing culling as a means to control population levels.
However, it is clear from the increasing reports of poaching and ivory seizures that the international illegal trade continues to pose a serious threat to elephants worldwide. This is particularly true of those occurring in countries other than Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, which are often poorly resourced and unable to provide the necessary levels of protection. For example, the forest elephants of Central and Western Africa are currently being hit hard by poaching, as once remote areas of habitat are progressively opened up to logging and road-building activities. The limited availability of data makes the full impact of this trend difficult to quantify, but a new report by Steven Blake et al (available at www.biologyosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=getdocument&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0050111) succinctly illustrates the precarious situation faced by such forest dwelling pachyderms.
The current situation suggests the need for a holistic, pan-African and long-term approach to elephant conservation and the ivory trade issue, rather than one which focuses on the status of distinct national populations (elephants are migratory animals so, apart from those living in fenced wildlife areas, frequently transgress international boundaries anyway). Such an approach is reflected in the proposal submitted by Kenya and Mali to COP14. This calls for a 20-year moratorium on all ivory trade in order to allow sufficient time to assess any impacts of the forthcoming sales, particularly in terms of poaching and illegal trade. Needless to say, their proposal will be vehemently opposed by the pro-trade lobby, and may even be perceived as too ‘extreme’ by some of the more moderate parties, including the EU. In addition, the CITES Secretariat has already stated that a 20-year ban would be impossible to guarantee, as parties are permitted to submit amendments to proposals at any time.
Nonetheless, what is certain is that current international trade regulations and global enforcement capacity is not enough to deter illegal traders and prevent thousands of elephants from being killed every year to feed the increasing market demand for ivory. And this demand is only likely to be stimulated further by the forthcoming sales, placing an added strain on the already limited resources of those countries struggling hardest to protect their elephants from the poacher’s gun.
EIA will be attending COP14 in June in order to lobby against any further relaxation of the ivory trade ban. Look out for further updates on the website nearer the time.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Investing in elephant futures
(Originally published in The Observor some ten years ago)
Should Africa's elephants be harvested for their ivory, or should they be left to live their lives in peace? The question is nothing like so simple as at first it may seem. One issue that seems to have been overlooked in debates on the ethics of international trade in ivory is the basic biology of the elephant. Because of the rate at which elephants' tusks grow, it may make economic sense for dealers not to buy ivory today, but to invest in "elephant futures" and thus conserve the great beasts of Africa.
Everyone who loves animals would like the elephants to be left " in peace". But it is clear, first of all, that populations of elephants, left to themselves, swell and collapse like those of lemmings - albeit on a timescale of decades or centuries. When elephants had the entire continent to roam in, then fair enough: such space could absorb the enormous ecological shock of their peaks and troughs. But, if they are confined to national parks, as they are now, then they are bound to run into ecological disaster unless their numbers are regulated. So if we care about the elephants' long- term survival we have to be prepared to cull them. And if they have to be culled anyway, then why not take their tusks to pay local people to maintain the parks? Local people are important: and all wildlife is doomed - probably - unless local people acquiesce in its protection.
Others point out, again with justice, that if there is a legitimate trade in ivory based on elephants culled systematically (from parks) then an illegitimate trade could ride on its back: based on
poached elephants. Africa's elephants have declined from an estimated 1.2 million at the end of the 1970s to 600,000 by the end of the 1980s, and 80 percent of the ivory that has appeared on the market in the past decade has been poached. The only way to cut out the poaching is to eliminate the ivory trade altogether. It was this argument that recently prompted the Kenyan government to order a vast cache of tusks to be burnt. Some people just feel a general disgust for the trade. Dr John Leger, a South African conservationist, said: "Ivory belongs in the same league as ashtrays made from the hands of gorillas."
On purely rational grounds, it seems impossible to choose between the two strategies. Any decision seems bound to be based either on guesswork or on simple emotion; and although emotion is a sine qua non, it should not be the sole guide to action.
Yet there is a possible compromise. It derives from work at Dr John Beddington's Renewable Resources Assessment Department at Imperial College, London. For it could be in everybody's interests, when harvesting ivory, simply to let the animals die of old age and to take tusks only from animals that have died a natural death. It should pay the harvesters of ivory assiduously to protect tuskers throughout their lives, and to ensure that they live as long as possible. Then, when the animal finally dies (after a peaceful life), the financial reward would be enormous. Thus, the demands of commerce and of humanitarianism would be reconciled.
This notion is based on the biology of the elephant. Most of an animal's physical attributes - its ears, its liver, and its brain - reach a certain size as it matures, and then stop growing. They may even shrink in old age. But the teeth of some animals continue to grow throughout life, and so it is with elephants' tusks.
Furthermore, the growth of elephants' tusks is exponential." Exponential" does not mean "fast",
as the sub-editors of The Economist apparently suppose. It means that the rate of growth increases as time passes. Thus a 30-year old, and the 50-year old's might be twice as big as the 40-year old's. The bull that ran its biblical span of threescore years and ten should be marvellously endowed.
The argument also works the other way round. Suppose, for example, that you decide the first year to harvest a certain weight of ivory from a particular elephant population. You do this, sensibly enough,
by killing the elephants with the largest tusks. But if you decide the following year to harvest the same amount again - having established a market in the first year to harvest the same amount again - having established a market in the first year - then you will find that you have to kill more elephants than you killed the first year, because those that are left have smaller tusks. The following year the position will be worse, because those that are left will have much smaller tusks. Such a harvesting policy - taking more and more animals, of younger and younger age, each year - sounds insane. Nevertheless, says Dr Beddington, this is precisely what has been happening among many African herds, which is why the decline is not only continuing, but accelerating.
Suppose now, though, that you are a Japanese dealer in ivory (it is, after all, the Japanese who account for most of the trade). You could simply arrange with your African contacts to go and kill elephants. But if you were astute, you would realise that if you waited a year, or five, or 10, you could harvest enormously more than if you struck immediately. It could pay you, in fact, not to buy ivory, but to buy futures in ivory. Of course you have to make a living in the meantime. But as the growth rate of the ivory is exponential, and the interest rate on borrowed money is not, it could well pay you, even in naive cash terms, to borrow money for the immediate protection of the elephants - provided only that you are guaranteed to take possession of the tusks eventually. And again, because the rate of growth of the ivory is exponential, this waiting strategy would become more and more attractive with each passing year. It would pay you, indeed, to keep it up until the friendly animal finally keeled over, a happy and fulfilled septuagenarian.
Such a strategy would raise new problems. Big old animals are obstructive: it would put an enormous strain on parks (and on fellow elephants), if all the old males were encouraged to stay on. But when they are old they are largely solitary; and it would not be inhumane to keep them apart corrals. The younger herd of the forest would then be regarded (by the commercial dealers) as seed corn for the future. Of course, the argument that a legitimate trade would open the door for an illegitimate trade would still apply. However, if the ivory trade was run on these rational lines, and if the price of ivory was maintained, there would be so much money in the business that it would profit the traders to pay today's poachers to act as guardians; and there is no finer gamekeeper than an erstwhile poacher.
John Beddington's general aim at Imperial is to "found workable technologies upon sound ecological principles". Here is one possibility.
Colin Tudge presents BBC radio's science programme, "Spectrum". He is writing a book on animal conservation, "Last Animals at the Zoo", to be published by Century Hutchinson.
Should Africa's elephants be harvested for their ivory, or should they be left to live their lives in peace? The question is nothing like so simple as at first it may seem. One issue that seems to have been overlooked in debates on the ethics of international trade in ivory is the basic biology of the elephant. Because of the rate at which elephants' tusks grow, it may make economic sense for dealers not to buy ivory today, but to invest in "elephant futures" and thus conserve the great beasts of Africa.
Everyone who loves animals would like the elephants to be left " in peace". But it is clear, first of all, that populations of elephants, left to themselves, swell and collapse like those of lemmings - albeit on a timescale of decades or centuries. When elephants had the entire continent to roam in, then fair enough: such space could absorb the enormous ecological shock of their peaks and troughs. But, if they are confined to national parks, as they are now, then they are bound to run into ecological disaster unless their numbers are regulated. So if we care about the elephants' long- term survival we have to be prepared to cull them. And if they have to be culled anyway, then why not take their tusks to pay local people to maintain the parks? Local people are important: and all wildlife is doomed - probably - unless local people acquiesce in its protection.
Others point out, again with justice, that if there is a legitimate trade in ivory based on elephants culled systematically (from parks) then an illegitimate trade could ride on its back: based on
poached elephants. Africa's elephants have declined from an estimated 1.2 million at the end of the 1970s to 600,000 by the end of the 1980s, and 80 percent of the ivory that has appeared on the market in the past decade has been poached. The only way to cut out the poaching is to eliminate the ivory trade altogether. It was this argument that recently prompted the Kenyan government to order a vast cache of tusks to be burnt. Some people just feel a general disgust for the trade. Dr John Leger, a South African conservationist, said: "Ivory belongs in the same league as ashtrays made from the hands of gorillas."
On purely rational grounds, it seems impossible to choose between the two strategies. Any decision seems bound to be based either on guesswork or on simple emotion; and although emotion is a sine qua non, it should not be the sole guide to action.
Yet there is a possible compromise. It derives from work at Dr John Beddington's Renewable Resources Assessment Department at Imperial College, London. For it could be in everybody's interests, when harvesting ivory, simply to let the animals die of old age and to take tusks only from animals that have died a natural death. It should pay the harvesters of ivory assiduously to protect tuskers throughout their lives, and to ensure that they live as long as possible. Then, when the animal finally dies (after a peaceful life), the financial reward would be enormous. Thus, the demands of commerce and of humanitarianism would be reconciled.
This notion is based on the biology of the elephant. Most of an animal's physical attributes - its ears, its liver, and its brain - reach a certain size as it matures, and then stop growing. They may even shrink in old age. But the teeth of some animals continue to grow throughout life, and so it is with elephants' tusks.
Furthermore, the growth of elephants' tusks is exponential." Exponential" does not mean "fast",
as the sub-editors of The Economist apparently suppose. It means that the rate of growth increases as time passes. Thus a 30-year old, and the 50-year old's might be twice as big as the 40-year old's. The bull that ran its biblical span of threescore years and ten should be marvellously endowed.
The argument also works the other way round. Suppose, for example, that you decide the first year to harvest a certain weight of ivory from a particular elephant population. You do this, sensibly enough,
by killing the elephants with the largest tusks. But if you decide the following year to harvest the same amount again - having established a market in the first year to harvest the same amount again - having established a market in the first year - then you will find that you have to kill more elephants than you killed the first year, because those that are left have smaller tusks. The following year the position will be worse, because those that are left will have much smaller tusks. Such a harvesting policy - taking more and more animals, of younger and younger age, each year - sounds insane. Nevertheless, says Dr Beddington, this is precisely what has been happening among many African herds, which is why the decline is not only continuing, but accelerating.
Suppose now, though, that you are a Japanese dealer in ivory (it is, after all, the Japanese who account for most of the trade). You could simply arrange with your African contacts to go and kill elephants. But if you were astute, you would realise that if you waited a year, or five, or 10, you could harvest enormously more than if you struck immediately. It could pay you, in fact, not to buy ivory, but to buy futures in ivory. Of course you have to make a living in the meantime. But as the growth rate of the ivory is exponential, and the interest rate on borrowed money is not, it could well pay you, even in naive cash terms, to borrow money for the immediate protection of the elephants - provided only that you are guaranteed to take possession of the tusks eventually. And again, because the rate of growth of the ivory is exponential, this waiting strategy would become more and more attractive with each passing year. It would pay you, indeed, to keep it up until the friendly animal finally keeled over, a happy and fulfilled septuagenarian.
Such a strategy would raise new problems. Big old animals are obstructive: it would put an enormous strain on parks (and on fellow elephants), if all the old males were encouraged to stay on. But when they are old they are largely solitary; and it would not be inhumane to keep them apart corrals. The younger herd of the forest would then be regarded (by the commercial dealers) as seed corn for the future. Of course, the argument that a legitimate trade would open the door for an illegitimate trade would still apply. However, if the ivory trade was run on these rational lines, and if the price of ivory was maintained, there would be so much money in the business that it would profit the traders to pay today's poachers to act as guardians; and there is no finer gamekeeper than an erstwhile poacher.
John Beddington's general aim at Imperial is to "found workable technologies upon sound ecological principles". Here is one possibility.
Colin Tudge presents BBC radio's science programme, "Spectrum". He is writing a book on animal conservation, "Last Animals at the Zoo", to be published by Century Hutchinson.
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Another two elephant killed in West Petauke GMA of Zambia...
The Natural Resources Chairman of the Luembe Community Resource Board reports today that a gang of elephant poachers were arrested by the Nyimba ZAWA Unit a few days ago in the West Petauke Game Management Area, and two pairs of tusks and meat confiscated. Three more poachers are therefore in the Nyimba jail awaiting trial. Community investigations continue into the role of the Nyimba ZAWA Unit and ZAWA and village guards in the current wave of elephant slaughter. ZAWA HQ have yet to report on progress in this regard, although they promised to do so.
Zambia Wildlife Authority Elephant Policy...
Elephant management strategies
The strategies recognize the elephant’s economic potential at local and national levels in terms of creation of employment and income generation, through consumptive and non-consumptive uses. It should be noted therefore, that in this context, elephants have an incomparable economic potential than all the other species of wildlife currently being utilized in Zambia (save for the black rhino). It also has the potential to out compete several other land use options, given a level playing field.
In order for Government to realize maximum economic potential from the elephant, it is critical that species protection through effective management and cooperation with local communities are enhanced. This requires a succinct policy and subsidiary legislation to support management strategies. This initiative, therefore, constitutes the first effort to develop specific guidelines on how elephant will be managed in Zambia and is being issued for four main reasons as follows:
That the Government of the Republic of Zambia considers elephant as an economic asset in terms of non-consumptive and consumptive tourism, but has not been given due prominence in the past so that it can compete with other land use options; Proper management of the species is critical so that it realizes its full potential to generate significant income for the nation and local community in particular; Proper ivory management system will enable government to dispose of the ivory stockpile to raise forex for the nation and income for ZAWA and local communities who often lose their crops to elephants; As a keystone species in the environment and critical to the maintenance of biodiversity
The summation of the above issues and problems have raised national debate and present new challenges that must be addressed continuously.
The strategies recognize the elephant’s economic potential at local and national levels in terms of creation of employment and income generation, through consumptive and non-consumptive uses. It should be noted therefore, that in this context, elephants have an incomparable economic potential than all the other species of wildlife currently being utilized in Zambia (save for the black rhino). It also has the potential to out compete several other land use options, given a level playing field.
In order for Government to realize maximum economic potential from the elephant, it is critical that species protection through effective management and cooperation with local communities are enhanced. This requires a succinct policy and subsidiary legislation to support management strategies. This initiative, therefore, constitutes the first effort to develop specific guidelines on how elephant will be managed in Zambia and is being issued for four main reasons as follows:
That the Government of the Republic of Zambia considers elephant as an economic asset in terms of non-consumptive and consumptive tourism, but has not been given due prominence in the past so that it can compete with other land use options; Proper management of the species is critical so that it realizes its full potential to generate significant income for the nation and local community in particular; Proper ivory management system will enable government to dispose of the ivory stockpile to raise forex for the nation and income for ZAWA and local communities who often lose their crops to elephants; As a keystone species in the environment and critical to the maintenance of biodiversity
The summation of the above issues and problems have raised national debate and present new challenges that must be addressed continuously.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Zimbabwe: States to Hold Preparatory Meeting Ahead of Cites
The Herald (Harare)
April 2, 2007
Posted to the web April 2, 2007
Harare
ELEPHANT range states from southern Africa are holding a preparatory meeting on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species in Botswana next week. Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe are expected to come up with a common position ahead of the proposal by Kenya and Mali to ban all trade in elephant products. If adopted, the proposal would seriously affect hunting in Botswana, South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe. A Zimbabwean delegation headed by Secretary for Environment and Tourism Mrs Margaret Sangarwe will present its submissions on the wildlife hunting situation in the country. "The main focus will be on elephant hunting and the effects this proposal will have on the sector if it sails through during the Cites meeting," Mrs Sangarwe said.
April 2, 2007
Posted to the web April 2, 2007
Harare
ELEPHANT range states from southern Africa are holding a preparatory meeting on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species in Botswana next week. Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe are expected to come up with a common position ahead of the proposal by Kenya and Mali to ban all trade in elephant products. If adopted, the proposal would seriously affect hunting in Botswana, South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe. A Zimbabwean delegation headed by Secretary for Environment and Tourism Mrs Margaret Sangarwe will present its submissions on the wildlife hunting situation in the country. "The main focus will be on elephant hunting and the effects this proposal will have on the sector if it sails through during the Cites meeting," Mrs Sangarwe said.
More from the ele killings fields of Zambia...
Last week ten people were arrested at the Luangwa Bridge as they attempted to smuggle elephant meat and four tusks through to Lusaka on a lorry. Alerted by a Nyalugwe Community Resource Board member, in whose country the two elephant were poached, paramilitary arrested the group, delivered some impromptu corporal punishment, then released - for reasons unknown, the driver and the lorry, and sent the poachers to Nyimba town jail. Two sporting rifles (.375 and 30.06), a shotgun and a muzzle loader were confiscated. The poaching group are from the hamlet of Lukwipa, forty miles East of the Luangwa bridge, a roadside village notorious for its game meat market; two of the members are prominant citizens in the village, one a schoolmaster, the other the dispensary assistant. This continuing onslaught on our elephant is having the unfortunate effect of forcing them to take refuge around villages, attacking grain bins, huts and villagers.
Reports have also been received of an attack by poachers on personnel looking after a safari lodge at Mushika in the Lower Zambezi National Park; and in the adjoining Rufunsa Game Management Area a wildlife officer recently poached a kudu, calling in his friends on his cell phone.
Reports have also been received of an attack by poachers on personnel looking after a safari lodge at Mushika in the Lower Zambezi National Park; and in the adjoining Rufunsa Game Management Area a wildlife officer recently poached a kudu, calling in his friends on his cell phone.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)