Smuggling of elephant ivory and rhino horn on agenda of UN-backed forum

UNITED NATIONS NEWS CENTRE

24 July 2012 – The massive smuggling of elephant ivory and rhino horn, tiger conservation and the illegal trade in great apes are among the issues on the agenda of a United Nations-backed meetingtaking place in Geneva this week.

Some 350 participants are participating in the meeting of the Standing Committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which began in Geneva yesterday.

The Committee oversees the implementation of rules for the international trade in protected wildlife on behalf of the Conference of the 175 member countries of CITES.

Elephant issues, including rising levels in the illegal killing of elephants and ivory smuggling, features high on the agenda of the week-long meeting, as does the drivers behind the “exploding” demand in rhino horn, according to a news release issued by the CITES secretariat, which is administered by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

“With elephant and rhino poaching and smuggling levels being the worst in a decade, it is clear that strong additional measures are required,” said the Chairman of the Committee, Øysten Størkersen, adding that 2013 will be a critical year to adopt enhanced measures to protect the planet’s biodiversity and ensure effective implementation on the ground.

“The present meeting will help set the priorities and to ensure the long-term survival of key species we would like to leave to future generations,” he stated.

The meeting will also review the progress made in the implementation of measures to reduce the over-exploitation of freshwater turtles and tortoises, as well as some frogs and plants from Madagascar, in addition to discussing the sourcing of Asian snakes used in the leather industry. Also on the agenda are tiger conservation initiatives and the illegal trade in great apes.

This week’s gathering will also decide on the agenda of the next meeting of the Conference of the Parties, which will take place in Bangkok in March 2013, and will coincide with the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Convention.

CITES regulates international trade in close to 35,000 species of plants and animals, including their products and derivatives, ensuring their survival in the wild with benefits for the livelihoods of local people and the global environment.

Fears for future of African elephant as UN prepares to legalise China ivory sales

THE TELEGRAPH – VIKKI MILLER

The UN is on the brink of legalising the sale of ivory to China, bringing renewed fears for the survival of the African elephant.

Succumbing to the massive Chinese demand for ivory carvings and trinkets is likely to give an enormous boost to the illegal, poaching-based trade, conservationists have warned.

They say if China becomes an approved ivory trading partner, African elephants “will be shot into extinction”.

China is expected to be given the green light by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) at a meeting in Geneva on Tuesday. The upcoming auction of 108 tonnes of ivory, which China would be able to participate in, is also likely to be given the go-ahead. In previous sales, only Japan had been allowed to take part.

An ivory ban was first imposed in 1989 after the number of African elephants fell to 625,000 from 1.3 million in 1980.

The ban was intended to be fully operative by 1997, but, led by Robert Mugabe, four south African countries – Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa – were allowed to opt out, on the basis that their elephant populations were stable or increasing, and they would only sell tusks of elephants that had died of natural causes or had been shot as rouges.

As a result, Cites allowed an auction of 50 tonnes of ivory from the four countries in 1999 for approved buyers only.

Allan Thornton, of the Environment Investigations Agency, said China’s participation in the next auction would catalyse a massive apetite for ivory. He said: “In a country of 1.3 billion people, demand for ivory from just a fraction of one per cent of the population is colossal. If these new legal imports go ahead, they will provide a gigantic cover for illegal ivory to be sucked in.”

But John Sellar, Cites’ senior anti-smuggling and fraud official, said that China had made considerable improvements to its enforcement regime against illicit trading and that it should be recommended as an official trading partner.