Press Release: South African Ivory Sale a Disgrace

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*PRESS RELEASE: 6 November 2008*

 

 

 

*CITES SANCTIONED SALE OF 51 TONNES OF SOUTH AFRICAN IVORY A DISGRACE*

 

 

 

South Africa's largest and most vocal animal rights organization, Animal

Rights Africa (ARA), says that the CITES sanctioned ivory auction to be held

in South Africa on November 6, 2008 signals a deeply tragic future for

elephants globally and is a shame filled event for South Africans who are

pursuing a more just , more principled and more caring future.

 

 

 

" Whilst the financial incentive of adding to South Africa's coffers might

seem like sound conservation and trade reasoning, this is a trade that

exclusively profits from misery and persecution and can be compared to the

slave trade. The amount will pale into insignificance when measured against

the anticipated cost to elephants' lives elsewhere in Africa and Asia as

poachers revert to the pre-1989 slaughter that drenched the soils of Africa

in elephant blood and which ultimately led to the 1989 CITES moratorium on

ivory sales across international borders, " said ARA spokesperson Michele

Pickover.

 

 

 

ARA is deeply concerned because what is obviously driving the current South

African government are not conservation imperatives but a deeply worrying

short-sighted attitude that is immorally and unsustainably commodifying

African wildlife and is responsible for selling off Africa's heritage to the

highest bidder for perceived short-term profit. The incentive to satisfy the

demands of the " use it or lose it " wildlife resource utilization lobby, led

most vociferously by the Safari Club International hunting organization, and

the demands of the Chinese and Japanese ivory carving industry, has meant

that both CITES and the South African Department of Environmental Affairs

and Tourism (DEAT) have lost their conservation integrity by first

proposing, and then supporting such a sale.

 

 

 

During the decade preceding the CITES moratorium, the elephant population in

Africa was cut in half, from an estimated 1.2 million elephants to just six

hundred thousand as warlords, ivory gangsters and corrupt conservation and

customs officials, supported by corrupt police and security officers as well

as corrupt politicians profited from the insatiable demand for ivory in

Japan and elsewhere in the Far East, a demand that was maintained because

the availability of ivory from both legal and illegal sources was

guaranteed.

 

 

 

Both CITES and the South African government are accused by ARA of being

naïve in stating that the dispersal of processed ivory throughout Japan and

China can be monitored. " This is simply an impossible task, particularly as

it is well known that organized crime syndicates in both Japan and China are

deeply involved in the ivory trade. The real issue here is that ivory is

just a small concession in the much more lucrative field of trade and

technology agreements between South Africa and the purchasing countries in

the Far East, " says Pickover. " In terms of the management of South Africa's

elephant population where, according to the official National Norms and

Standards for the Management of Elephants in South Africa (NNSEMSA),

elephant culling may only be considered as a management tool of last resort,

the anticipation of future CITES-sanctioned ivory auctions will surely be a

major incentive to apply the fatally flawed NNSEMSA to justify the culling

of elephants in order to stockpile ivory. "

 

 

 

It is also misleading of the pro-ivory trade bodies to calculate the effects

on elephant populations solely based on the amount of *seized* illegal

ivory. The truth is that wildlife enforcement agencies in Africa are

hopeless under-resourced and under-staffed and are thus unable to

effectively deal with poaching and the illegal trade in ivory. Moreover

culling, hunting, harassment and killing of elephant clans and family

members is severely impacting on elephants socially and psychologically and

this will also spell disaster for people who live in close proximity to

elephants.

 

 

 

ARA will continue to insist that DEAT totally removes the culling management

option from the NNSEMSA. Said Pickover - " We owe it to the elephants to

continue our fight to have their rights recognized and protected within our

legal framework. If we allow the morally dysfunctional " resource use " lobby

to dictate the terms of elephant management in South Africa then we will

have failed the elephants and future generations of humans. They are

relying on us to fight their fight and we will not compromise! "

 

 

 

*Ends *

 

 

 

*Contact persons for ARA:*

 

Steve Smit +27 (0) 82 659 4711

 

Michele Pickover +27 (0) 82 253 2124

 

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*ARA email - info*

 

*ARA website – www.animalrightsafrica.org * * *

 

 

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