Green Options

Tanzania is reportedly preparing to ask CITES to lift the trade ban on elephant ivory, much to the dismay of its EAC neighbors, conservationists, and members of the tourism industry.

In a move that would surely undermine East African conservation efforts, Tanzania has taken up the position that a sanctioned sale of elephant ivory would provide much-needed financial support to the country’s anti-poaching measures.

This comes as a shock to the East African Community (EAC), considering that last year’s sanctioning of a one-off ivory auction is to blame for igniting a scourge of rampant elephant killings throughout Africa - particularly Kenya.

Expansion of critical habitat for tigers and the establishment of a Wildlife Crime Control Committee are among the announcements from the Kathmandu Global Tiger Workshop. But will these efforts be enough to protect tigers from China’s ‘bizarre obsession’ with tiger body parts?

Encouraging news so far from the inaugural session of the Kathmandu Global Tiger Workshop: Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal announced a 900 sq km increase of Bardia National Park, expanding critical habitat for Nepal’s tigers.

Thanks to the controversial approval of a one-off ivory sale, illegal trade in ivory has been reinvigorated - and 100 elephants a day are being slaughtered.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) approved a one-off elephant ivory auction in 2008 of 119 tons (108 tonnes) - representing over 10,000 dead elephants - and this decision is believed to have stimulated the growing illegal ivory market.

In an intense international rescue and anti-poaching operation, 46 black rhino have been moved to safer areas - and eight poachers have been killed - in Zimbabwe.

Thanks to coverage by international media, public support, and international pressure from CITES, the International Rhino Foundation’s (IRF) Crisis Zimbabwe awareness campaign has reportedly raised more than $120,000 in emergency funds to rescue 46 black rhino from vulnerable areas in Zimbabwe. And since May, eight poachers have been killed during armed confrontations with police, compared to seven known rhino poaching losses in the Lowveld.

The slaughter of a white rhino named Heide from Thula Thula private game reserve brings the year’s total in KZN to 17. Just two days ago, another white rhino was killed at the Intaba Ingwe game ranch nearby.

Efforts to keep Heide safe from poachers were simply not enough. According to The Witness, the young rhino had even been assigned a tracker in hopes of keeping her safe from poachers.

Sadly, she vanished and her carcass was found yesterday, with her horn hacked out of her face.

Operators of Thula Thula Lawrence Anthony and Francoise Malby-Anthony said in the article that only two white rhino remain on their reserve. Heide was born on Thula Thula seven years ago.

The recent slaughter of rhinos in the province is being investigated by members of the police Organised Crime Units. They noted that the case appears similar to others in Opathe and Mfozolo.

Experts agree that the rising affluence in China is directly related to what can only be described as an organized, deliberate mass slaughter of rhinos. Evidence is emerging that poaching cartels are fulfilling “orders” for rhino horn (and elephant ivory) at the request of Chinese nationals - who reportedly pay a fee to smuggle the horns from Africa to Asia.

Six businessmen from Tanzania were charged today for smuggling 11 tons of elephant ivory worth $600,000 into the Philippines and Vietnam.

The men were charged under 11 counts of conspiracy, unlawful hunting, exporting concealed and undeclared items as well as making false documents. It’s likely that the intricate smuggling job was conducted between October 2008 and March this year.

Kenyan wildlife authorities believe that a CITES decision to allow limited legal ivory trade has sent a signal that all ivory trade has been resumed.

An alarming resurgence in elephant poaching at the same time that a partial ban on ivory trade has been lifted is not a coincidence. Earlier this month, an illegal shipment of $1-million worth of elephant tusks and rhino horn was seized at the Jomo Kenyatta Airport. Blood on the ivory and horns confirmed that the elephants and rhinos had recently been killed. The animal parts were hidden in coffins, and were en route to Laos. Kenya wildlife authorities are confident that the tusks and horn had a final destination of China, where the illegal trade in endangered species parts is well-established.

The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) Head of Species and Conservation Management, Patrick Ormandi, reports that since the partial lifting of ivory trade ban:

Last year we lost 98 elephants to poachers and up to today, this year, we have lost up to 73 elephants. This is a big worry and all this is stimulated because there was an experiment to trade.

From the beginning, KWS has opposed any type of ivory trade with China. A spokesperson for KWS, Ngugi Gichaga, warned that the wrong signal would be sent with the re-opening of a limited legal ivory trade.

As Kenya told them that is not the way to go because that was going to send the wrong signals, because what it was going to signify is that there has been a resumption of trade with ivory.

Pangolins - scaly, toothless anteaters - are being poached incessantly from their native Southeast Asia habitats. TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, announced that the rising demand for Pangolin meat and scales, mostly from mainland China, is driving the disappearance of these shy animals.

The sheer size of recent Pangolin seizures is alarming:

They include 24 tonnes of frozen pangolins from Sumatra, Indonesia, seized in Viet Nam and 14 tonnes of frozen animals seized in Sumatra in 2008.

(Note: 1 metric ton = 2,204.6 pounds)

Earlier this year, 45 Pangolins were found in the possession of Thai smugglers.

The arguments that CITES ban must be lifted because it has failed needs to be addressed heads-on as it is a falsity used with clear intent of misinforming. The argument of raising tigers in the farms to re-populate in the wild, as of now, seems as facetious. Tiger-farms do great injustice to Traditional Chinese Medicine when they seek to justify their breeding of tigers for their parts for practice of TCM and the associated lifestyle.

Around Matabeleland elephants have broken into the crop fields and eaten the crops being grown by villagers. As well as elephant, wild pigs and baboons from Hwange National Park have begun to roam into agricultural land, causing havoc wherever crops are grown.

With help from the Wildlife Conservation Society, a population of 600 lowland gorillas will find protection within the borders of a new National Park in Cameroon.

The designated area, to be called Deng Deng National Park, is approximately 224 square miles in size, which is roughly the size of Chicago’s city limits.

Deng Deng is the second National Park created by the Cameroonian government in the last three months, and is the latest in swift actions taken to help protect the country’s abundant but threatened wildlife. Aside from the gorillas, the park will also shield a rich population of chimpanzees, elephants, buffaloes and bongos.