 |
|||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||
 |
|
|
Ivory Wars: A New Assault? March 20, 2000 Five hundred years ago, perhaps 10 million elephants lived and roamed throughout Africa. Today, it is estimated that about six percent of that number exists, or roughly 600,000, on the African continent. One major cause of this dramatic decline has been poaching, which has produced millions of tons of ivory for use in making various trinkets, ornaments and sculptures around the world. Perhaps most notably is the cultural use of ivory to create the Japanese hanko, which is used as a name stamp to "initial" or sign documents and personal items such as artwork. Thanks to a global ban on the ivory trade that was passed in 1989 by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the African elephant population may be reversing its spiral toward extinction. As a result, four southern African nations with healthy herds want to be allowed to resume sales of their ivory stockpiles, launching a renewed international controversy over conservation efforts for the African elephant species.
Opponents believe that granting their requests will have an alarming impact on the African elephant species in other countries where it is unknown exactly how many elephants remain and how they are faring. In a number of other countries -- like Kenya -- where the African elephant once reigned supreme, it is very difficult to monitor these animals because of the geography and expanse of the land on which they roam. This also makes them hard to protect, thus making them highly susceptible to the kind of poaching of yore when elephants were totally eradicated from specific areas by ivory traders simply for their tusks. In addition, the Asian elephant, whose population is estimated between only 35,000 an 50,000 in the wild, would most likely become an even bigger target of illegal poachers who may seek to sell the Asian ivory tusks illegally through the buyer nation(s) servicing the southern Africa nations. As in Africa, Asian elephants are currently subject to poaching.
This is not the first such request by Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia. Last year these countries were allowed to sell a portion of their ivory stockpiles in a one-time transaction -- all to Japan. Now, along with South Africa, they will ask the 150 member nations of CITES for permission to trade up to 54 tons of raw ivory tusks annually on the same terms as the experimental trades that were conducted last year. Their requests will be formally considered when the countries meet April 10-20 in Nairobi, Kenya, for the eleventh meeting of the "Conference of the Parties to CITES." CITES was formed in 1973 to protect wildlife against over-exploitation and to prevent international trade from threatening species with extinction. "If we could wave a magic wand and make sure that this [ivory trade in southern Africa] wouldn't negatively impact more vulnerable elephant populations in other countries, most mainstream conservation organizations would probably not oppose it," said Dr. Steve Osofsky, senior program officer for species conservation of the World Wildlife Fund - US. But, says Osofsky, "This is not the time for the resumption of sales in ivory." He reasons that it would be impossible to guarantee the conservation and health of elephant populations in other countries, and based on that alone, WWF is urging Botswana, South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe to withdraw their requests to trade ivory at this time. "The monitoring systems that the CITES parties themselves have mandated are still in their infancy, and are a long way from being able to tell African and Asian range countries and other CITES parties where elephants are geographically, how they are faring numerically, or how much poaching is going on over time," Osofsky said. In addition, while donor country resources are starting to be made available for a monitoring program, law enforcement budgets needed by the agencies responsible for proactively protecting elephants continue to decline across much of Africa." Osofsky notes that the actual number of African elephants likely ranges between 300,000 and 600,000, a wide margin of error due to the insufficiencies of today's monitoring systems. However, he believes that the actual number may be more towards the lower end of the estimate instead of the upper end. "That tells you that we have a long way to go in terms of understanding what shape the African elephant is in across its range," he says. "Keep in mind that CITES is a precautionary treaty, meaning that in the face of uncertainty, member countries must give the species in question the benefit of a doubt," Osofsky explains. "In this case, that means that further ivory sales would be premature right now."
According to the official WWF position statement on the African elephant issue, the current "interim" monitoring system is virtually unable to provide the information needed by the CITES members to support decisions related to the African elephant. There are, however, two new long-term monitoring systems being developed that will try to provide accurate information as well as effective controls: Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) and The Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS). Though these systems are not yet operational, WWF states that no trade should resume until MIKE and ETIS are fully functional and "generating substantial and representative data on elephant populations and rates of poaching." While African elephants may be deemed more valuable for their tusks by traders and sculptors, they are a mainstay of most African countries' primary industry -- tourism. Elephants are central to the tourist economies of such countries as Kenya and Tanzania, where people from around the world pay millions of dollars each year to see and experience the African wildlife, savannas and forests. Elephants, which range over about 2.2 million square miles (5.8 million square kilometers) of Africa, are key to the health of these ecosystems, which also includes other wildlife. Only about 20 percent of that area is protected. The US Fish & Wildlife Service also lists the African elephant as an endangered species. Since 1989, the United States government has effectively banned all ivory imports into the country. At about the same time, campaigns in the US, the United Kingdom and most of Europe that urged people not to buy ivory were taking root. But with the cultural proclivities toward ivory of such major Asian countries as Japan, China and Korea, there is substantial support for continuing the trade of ivory as soon as possible. And this could pose a bigger problem for conservationists seeking to control the trade. "The bigger loophole [of the ivory trade] is likely on the buying end," Osofsky explains. "Vigilance for illegal ivory would have to be maintained at the buyer's end as much as anywhere else. Did You Know....
Suggested Reading:
Also check out these sites:
|
|
 |
||||||||
South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe are asking that they be allowed to resume their trade in ivory, guaranteeing that money from the sales will be used to ensure continued elephant conservation efforts in their countries. They argue that their ivory only comes from elephants which have died naturally or were culled (legally killed for management purposes) in overcrowded areas. They also ensure that no elephants were killed or will be killed specifically to generate ivory for this trade.
© 2008-2010 ecology.com The Ecology Global Network is a trademark of Ecology Communications Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
