CITES relaxation for China: Wildlife Trust of India report

[Guest guest]

*

http://www.wildlifetrustofindia.org/news/2008/july/080716_cites_approves_china_a\

s_importer.html

*

*CITES Standing Committee releases ivory to China -

world's largest illegal market*

 

*Geneva (Switzerland), July 16, 2008: *Dealing a major blow to elephant

conservationists*, *the 57th session of the Standing Committee for the

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), yesterday

approved China as an importer for 108 tonnes of elephant ivory, on for sale

from four southern African nations.

 

China is known to be the world's largest illegal ivory market, a fact

evidenced by several multiple tonne seizures made at Chinese ports in recent

years. Legalising the sale will only facilitate flushing of illegally

acquired ivory into the mainstream market with competitive prices making

them an attractive choice to consumers, conservationists argue.

 

 

 

 

Ashok Kumar, Vice-Chairman, Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), labeled this

ruling as a major step backward in curbing illegal ivory trade and elephant

poaching which is likely to impact the Asian elephant population as well.

 

Peter Pueschel, Program Director and one of the representatives for

International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) at CITES, raised an

intervention on the floor objecting to China's designation citing statistics

from the " 2007 ivory trade poll report " . " …Allowing new ivory to be imported

into China will stimulate demand and create loopholes for illegal ivory to

be laundered into the legal market, to be sold in stores or online to

Chinese citizens or foreigners, " said Pueschel.

 

The report compiled by this leading elephant protection organisation,

highlights the low awareness of the current ivory control system in China,

and also citizens' unwillingness to comply with this framework. According to

the report, among the 14.5 per cent that were actual admitted consumers of

ivory, 75.7 per cent would willingly violate the control system in order to

obtain ivory at a cheaper price.

 

Earlier this month, in Mombasa, Kenya, 18 African elephant range states

during the second African Elephant Coalition (AEC) meeting, had also

discussed and unanimously agreed that China was unfit to be a trading

partner for the stock pile sales.

 

Michael Wamithi, Program Director for IFAW's global elephants program, and

former director of Kenya Wildlife Service, who closely followed the

proceedings of this meeting contended that in no way should China have been

accepted. " There remain to be an estimated 20,000 elephants slaughtered

annually for the trade in their tusks. Poaching has reached a level

surpassing that which was experienced before the initial 1989 ban on the

ivory trade. African elephant range states clearly do not have the capacity

or resources to combat these massive attacks on their countries' wildlife

heritage and the burgeoning markets in China are only fueling these attacks.

It is our duty as a civil society to step in and mitigate these inequities, "

Wamithi said.

 

Major portion of the ivory on sale by Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and

Zimbabwe was acquired through culling, a means for population control, by

killing the elephants. Some portions were also collected from natural deaths

and seizures within the respective political boundaries.

 

This will be the second time in nearly two decades that the international

sale in ivory has been authorised since the ban by CITES in 1989.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the first sale, sanctioned in 1997, Japan was the sole importer in the

legal ivory trade. The approval by CITES came amidst objections by

conservation organisations based on evidence, that the domestic market was

not under control. Last year, it was granted the status of trading partner

allowed to import the approved ivory after the Standing Committee decided

that Japan had established sufficiently strong domestic trade control

systems.

 

In 1989, CITES Parties listed the African elephant on Appendix I,

effectively prohibiting all international trade in elephants and their

derivatives, including ivory, but in 1997 this was resanctioned and certain

populations were down-listed to Appendix II, allowing certain trade with

special permissions from CITES.

In 2007, a suspension of at least nine years on international elephant ivory

trade was approved at the 14th meeting of the CITES Conference of the

Parties, coming into effect after the stock pile sales are completed. In

June this year the CITES secretariat had backed China, which holds the

alternate Vice-Chairmanship to the Standing Committee, to be the second

importer.

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

There is so much wrong with this article. For example, why should one even

note when a ³conservationist² argues economics. Give then a keyboard and a

virtual zoo program and then lock them in a dark room to do no harm. Another

is this mention that CITIES has only approved ³International² sales twice in

two decades. They approve local sales almost every year, according to their

own documents. So to portray CITIES as some stop-gap organization in the

Ivory Trade is both misleading and false. Humans should not be allowed to

use words if they continue to abuse them. Cheers,

Jigs in Nepal

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:57:33 +0530

aapn <aapn >

CITES relaxation for China: Wildlife Trust of India report

 

*

http://www.wildlifetrustofindia.org/news/2008/july/080716_cites_approves_chi

na_as_importer.html

*

*CITES Standing Committee releases ivory to China -

world's largest illegal market*

 

*Geneva (Switzerland), July 16, 2008: *Dealing a major blow to elephant

conservationists*, *the 57th session of the Standing Committee for the

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), yesterday

approved China as an importer for 108 tonnes of elephant ivory, on for sale

from four southern African nations.

 

China is known to be the world's largest illegal ivory market, a fact

evidenced by several multiple tonne seizures made at Chinese ports in recent

years. Legalising the sale will only facilitate flushing of illegally

acquired ivory into the mainstream market with competitive prices making

them an attractive choice to consumers, conservationists argue.

 

 

 

 

Ashok Kumar, Vice-Chairman, Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), labeled this

ruling as a major step backward in curbing illegal ivory trade and elephant

poaching which is likely to impact the Asian elephant population as well.

 

Peter Pueschel, Program Director and one of the representatives for

International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) at CITES, raised an

intervention on the floor objecting to China's designation citing statistics

from the " 2007 ivory trade poll report " . " …Allowing new ivory to be imported

into China will stimulate demand and create loopholes for illegal ivory to

be laundered into the legal market, to be sold in stores or online to

Chinese citizens or foreigners, " said Pueschel.

 

The report compiled by this leading elephant protection organisation,

highlights the low awareness of the current ivory control system in China,

and also citizens' unwillingness to comply with this framework. According to

the report, among the 14.5 per cent that were actual admitted consumers of

ivory, 75.7 per cent would willingly violate the control system in order to

obtain ivory at a cheaper price.

 

Earlier this month, in Mombasa, Kenya, 18 African elephant range states

during the second African Elephant Coalition (AEC) meeting, had also

discussed and unanimously agreed that China was unfit to be a trading

partner for the stock pile sales.

 

Michael Wamithi, Program Director for IFAW's global elephants program, and

former director of Kenya Wildlife Service, who closely followed the

proceedings of this meeting contended that in no way should China have been

accepted. " There remain to be an estimated 20,000 elephants slaughtered

annually for the trade in their tusks. Poaching has reached a level

surpassing that which was experienced before the initial 1989 ban on the

ivory trade. African elephant range states clearly do not have the capacity

or resources to combat these massive attacks on their countries' wildlife

heritage and the burgeoning markets in China are only fueling these attacks.

It is our duty as a civil society to step in and mitigate these inequities, "

Wamithi said.

 

Major portion of the ivory on sale by Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and

Zimbabwe was acquired through culling, a means for population control, by

killing the elephants. Some portions were also collected from natural deaths

and seizures within the respective political boundaries.

 

This will be the second time in nearly two decades that the international

sale in ivory has been authorised since the ban by CITES in 1989.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the first sale, sanctioned in 1997, Japan was the sole importer in the

legal ivory trade. The approval by CITES came amidst objections by

conservation organisations based on evidence, that the domestic market was

not under control. Last year, it was granted the status of trading partner

allowed to import the approved ivory after the Standing Committee decided

that Japan had established sufficiently strong domestic trade control

systems.

 

In 1989, CITES Parties listed the African elephant on Appendix I,

effectively prohibiting all international trade in elephants and their

derivatives, including ivory, but in 1997 this was resanctioned and certain

populations were down-listed to Appendix II, allowing certain trade with

special permissions from CITES.

In 2007, a suspension of at least nine years on international elephant ivory

trade was approved at the 14th meeting of the CITES Conference of the

Parties, coming into effect after the stock pile sales are completed. In

June this year the CITES secretariat had backed China, which holds the

alternate Vice-Chairmanship to the Standing Committee, to be the second

importer.