CITES Update on Elephants by Joyce Poole

[Guest guest]

Message from Joyce Poole sent today, scientist and friend of Asian

Elephants. Joyce attended the CITES meeting in Doha. She was and remains an

inspiration and embodies that very rare balance of science and compassion in

conservation. Inter alia, she is also a supporter of the Indian Zoo Inquiry.

 

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We are extremely happy to report that elephants did well at CITES' CoP15 in

Doha, Qatar. But, we are well aware that while the battle was won, the war

against the ivory trade and for elephant conservation in general is an

on-going one. Poverty, greed, poor governance, habitat loss and lack of law

enforcement are among the many factors threatening the future of elephants

and interacting with the ivory trade with devastating effect.

 

 

*Elephant greeting*

 

<http://www.elephantvoices.org/images/stories/news/committe1_700w.jpg>Our

inspiration to fight on comes from the elephants themselves. We cannot win,

though, if elephant range states are not willing to put a higher value on

live rather than dead elephants. CITES is a convention set up to prevent the

over exploitation of species by trade (though sometimes the opposite seems

true); it is not meant to deal with issues of poverty, population growth or

land use planning. Some countries always play the poverty card, though.

While we do not buy the argument put forward over and again from southern

Africa that elephants " have to pay to stay " , we do recognize that we will

lose elephants if local governments are not able to balance out the needs of

people with those of elephants and wildlife in general.

 

*Major achievement for elephants*

 

As usual, elephants dominated the CITES Conference and at certain times the

atmosphere was extremely tense. Requests from Tanzania and Zambia to down

list their elephants populations from Appendix I to II and to begin to trade

in ivory were both rejected. Tanzania and Zambia amended their proposals

when they realized that they might lose the vote, but despite well

orchestrated interventions by supporting parties they did not succeed in

achieving the two thirds majority required. We firmly believe that down

listing and " one-off " sales would have further stimulated the market for

ivory, and led to more killing of elephants. They did succeed in getting

another vote in the plenary session today, Thursday 25th, but the victory

for elephants was upheld.

 

<http://www.elephantvoices.org/images/stories/news/iain_joyce_petter_sam_700w.jp\

g>We

feel that our participation was a major achievement for elephants and for

ElephantVoices. While at CoP15 in Doha ElephantVoices and Save the

Elephants<http://www.savetheelephants.org/>prepared and distributed a

statement<http://www.elephantvoices.org/dmdocuments_open/STEandEV_statement_CoP1\

5_w_att.pdf>to

the delegates arguing that the biological criteria for down listing of

Tanzania's and Zambia's elephant populations had not been met. We received

an enormous response to a scientific presentation by Iain Douglas-Hamilton,

Sam Wasser and

Joyce<http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=Local_News & subse\

ction=Qatar%20News & month=March2010 & file=Local_News2010032225620.xml>which

countered some of the claims by the CITES Secretariat. The day before

the vote more than 350 CITES participants squeezed into the meeting room

with tens more having to turn around at the door for lack of space. We heard

from many delegates that the presentation was an eye opener, and it is

probably fair to state that it had a significant impact on what transpired

later. We believe that our presentation helped influenced the EU to vote

against Tanzania and to abstain in the Zambian vote which meant that they

did not get the 2/3 majority required.

 

*A magnificent team for elephants *

 

Our main collaborator during CoP15 was the African Elephant Coalition (AEC,

with 23 African elephants range states as members), and the informal

group Kenya

Elephant

Forum<http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Kenya-Elephant-Forum/312051658445>(KEF)

which includes key stakeholders in Kenya (Save

the Elephants <http://savetheelephants.org/>, Amboseli Trust for

Elephants<http://www.elephanttrust.org/>,

Kenya Wildlife Service <http://www.kws.org/>, Youth for

Conservation<http://www.youthforconservation.org/>,

ElephantVoices and others) co-ordinated by Pat Awori. During our recent

trips to Kenya we were able to participate in two meetings of the KEF and

were in daily email contact with them leading up to the meeting. Our African

friends did a great job, and KWS assistant director Patrick Omondi presented

AEC perspectives in an excellent manner. *We are proud being part of this

magnificent team*!

 

Over 4,000 fans are currently following us on

Facebook<http://www.facebook.com/ElephantVoices>,

and during the heated discussions and thrilling vote Monday 12th we updated

our Facebook Page several times - " live from the conference hall in Doha " .

We got lots of responses, and many interesting comments that will be

reflected in our educational outreach and work ahead. Some of you might have

followed the updated list of links about the ivory trade and

poaching<http://www.elephantvoices.org/elephant-interests/-links-ivory-a-poachin\

g.html>,

list to CITES information and update

sources<http://www.elephantvoices.org/news-media-a-reports/cop15-updates.html>an\

d

used our searchable Document

Download

Center<http://www.elephantvoices.org/multimedia-resources/document-download-cent\

er.html>to

find documents

relevant to the ivory trade and

CITES<http://www.elephantvoices.org/multimedia-resources/document-download-cente\

r/cat_view/115-documents-related-to-ivory-trade-cites.html>

..

 

After months of focus on the ivory trade we will have to re-direct some of

our energy on several important welfare issues ahead. In ALL elephant work,

though, whether we are talking about wild or captive elephants, the welfare

perspective is one that we never forget.

 

*We thank all of you following and supporting us in this endeavor - and look

forward to continued contact!*