CITES protects elephants but not sharks & polar bears

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2010:

 

 

CITES protects elephants but not sharks & polar bears

 

DOHA, Qatar--Leading a last-minute rally to keep ivory

billiard balls out of fashion, the Kenyan delegation ran the table

on behalf of African elephants at the 15th triennial meeting of the

signatories to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered

Species, held in Doha, Qatar from March 13 to March 25, 2010.

Formed by the United Nations in 1973, CITES in 1989 banned

international traffic in elephant ivory, but CITES triennial

meetings have several times authorized exemptions allowing Botswana,

Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe to sell stockpiled ivory from

legally culled elephants, confiscated from smugglers, and collected

from elephants who died of natural causes. The exemptions--and

rumors that exemptions may be granted--have repeatedly been followed

by resurgent poaching throughout the wild elephant range in Africa

and Asia, as illegal traffickers respond to the opportunity to

market poached ivory under forged legal cover.

Just 37 elephants were poached in Kenya in 2007, for

example, when CITES extended the ivory trade moratorium for nine

more years, but 271 were poached in 2009.

Tanzania and Zambia asked for exemptions allowing them to

sell 112 tons of stockpiled ivory, expected to fetch $13 million to

$20 million. Tanzania applied to sell 80.5 tons; Zambia sought to

sell 21.5 tons.

Tanzania and Zambia also applied to downlist African

elephants from CITES Appendix I, which bans all commercial trade in

a species, to Appendix II, which allows controlled trade.

The Times of London and the East African, of Nairobi,

projected just ahead of the critical votes that Tanzania and Zambia

had the support of the two-thirds of CITES delegates that they would

need. They also projected that Kenya did not have the two-thirds

support that it needed to extend the ivory trade moratorium for

another 20 years. Japan and China reportedly backed the Tanzanian

and Zambian proposals, while the U.S., Britain, and other European

Union nations reportedly opposed the Kenyan proposal. But The

Nation, of Nairobi, and Gulf News, of Dubai, heard different

rumblings from the 23-nation African Elephants Coalition, led by

Kenya and Mali, and the Species Survival Network's Elephant Working

Group.

Come the showdown, literally at high noon on March 22, the

Tanzania application to sell elephant ivory was defeated. Zambia

withdrew its application to sell elephant ivory. The proposal to

downlist African elephants was defeated despite winning a majority of

the votes actually cast, 55-36. The proposal failed because 40

nations abstained from voting. Kenya then withdrew its motion to

extend the ivory sales moratorium, which appeared to have been a

bargaining chip.

The voting was swayed, reported Mike Mande of The East

African in Nairobi, by findings of the Journalists' Environmental

Association of Tanzania and the Environmental Investigation Agency,

of London, that as Mande summarized, " Since January last year,

Tanzania has been implicated as the source of nearly 50% of the ivory

seized worldwide. " Aldan Hartley of BBC-4 and Wildlife Direct, an

anti-poaching charity founded by two-time former Kenya Wildlife

Service director Richard Leakey, alleged in The Spectator magazine

that as many as 31,000 elephants have been poached in Selous National

Park, Tanzania, just since 2007.

 

Bobcats still safe

 

A less publicized CITES victory for animals came on March 17,

when the delegates refused to ratify a U.S. proposal, backed by the

fur industry, which would have reversed a 1977 ban on international

sales of pelts from Lynx rufus, the North America bobcat. Bobcats

are not considered endangered or threatened, but closely resemble

the endangered Iberian lynx.

Other CITES triennial decisions included a series of defeats

for animal and habitat advocates. The CITES delegates on March 18

rejected a U.S. proposal to move polar bears from Appendix II to

Appendix I, on March 21 rejected proposals to protect bluefin tuna

and the 32 species of pink and red coral on Appendix II, and on

March 23 rejected proposals from the U.S. and Palau to add

hammerhead, spiny dogfish, and oceanic whitetip sharks to Appendix

II.

Porbeagle sharks appeared to have won an Appendix II listing

on March 24, but the vote was reversed on the following day.

" Opposition by Japan, China and their allies led to the

defeat of every proposal to give CITES protection to lucrative marine

species, " wrote Kristen Eastman of the Humane Society of the U.S.

On March 22 an agreement was reached among CITES members,

including India and China, to better coordinate international

efforts to interdict trafficking in tiger parts. " There have been

many promises made this week, " Species Survival Network big cat

working group chair Debbie Banks told The Times of India, " but

getting countries to actually use these new enforcement tactics will

be the real test of the commitment to ending tiger trade, and saving

the species. "

Former Australian environmental official John Scanlon was

named to succeed Willem Wijnstekers as the CITES secretary/ general.

Wijnstekers, serving since 1999, is to retire on May 1, 2010.

 

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephones: 360-579-2505, 360-678-1057

Cell: 360-969-0450

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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