ENVIRONMENT: Gov’ts Seek to Ease Protection for Endangered Species

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Jun 17 2002 (IPS) - The secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has five months to decide on 54 proposals submitted by member governments aimed at easing prohibitions and controls on trade in threatened plant and animal species.

The initiatives would relax restrictions on trade in mahogany, toothfish, whales, elephants, turtles and vicuñas.

CITES must decide whether to accept, reject or modify the initiatives at the Nov 3-15 conference of its 158 member states in Santiago, Chile.

Illegal trade in endangered species, which CITES was set up to combat, brings traffickers profits of up to 800 percent, environmental groups reported Monday in London.

Two international organisations, Traffic and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) will present the results of a technical assessment to the governments and civil society organisations that will take part in the Santiago conference in November.

The groups’ recommendations will be drafted with the assistance of a team of expert advisers and released on Sep 13, said IUCN press officer Xenya Cherny. The IUCN brings together representatives of states, government agencies and non- governmental organisations.

For its part, the CITES secretariat will issues its observations on the government proposals for new trade rules in July.

The convention’s lists, or appendices, are revised every two- and-a-half years. Appendix I bans all trade in around 900 endangered species. Appendix II regulates trade in 4,000 animal and 20,000 plant species through a system of permits.

A proposal submitted by Australia, to include two species of Chilean sea bass, or toothfish, in Appendix II, would lead to an overlapping of the jurisdiction of CITES and that of regional fishing agreements and of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

If Australia’s request is approved, CITES would begin to participate in the regulation of stocks of fish with great commercial value, said Michael Williams, spokesman for the convention’s secretariat.

FAO and regional fishing agreements generally focus on yields, exploitation and changes taking place in the fishing industry, while CITES is concerned with environmental aspects linked to the protection of species.

The conference in Santiago will also discuss the situation of the African elephant. Several countries in southern Africa are seeking authorisation to make a one-time sale of existing legal ivory stocks, to be followed by the establishment of annual quotas.

CITES, which banned ivory sales for eight years, permitted Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe to make a one-off sale of legal raw ivory stocks in 1997.

Botswana is now asking to be allowed to make a one-time sale of 20,000 kilos and to be assigned an annual quota of 4,000 kilos, Namibia 10,000 kilos now and an annual quota of 2,000 kilos, South Africa 30,000 kilos and a quota of 2,000 kilos, and Zimbabwe 10,000 kilos and an annual quota of 5,000 kilos. In addition, Zambia, wants to sell 17,000 kilos.

India and Kenya, however, want all populations of African elephants to be transferred to Appendix I.

Facing off in the debate on the protection of elephants are those who argue that local communities would benefit from the income from ivory sales, and those who are worried that authorising any exports would fuel poaching.

Argentina, Bolivia and Chile, meanwhile, want to be allowed to sell more wool from the vicuña, a wild member of the Camelidae family that lives in the Andes at altitudes of between 3,000 and 5,000 metres.

The population of vicuñas in Latin America increased from 82,539 in 1981 to 227,201 in 2001, thanks to policies aimed at protecting the species.

The total number of vicuñas in Argentina climbed from 8,155 to 33,414, in Bolivia from 4,493 to 56,383, in Chile from 7,990 to 16,899, in Ecuador from none to 1,827, and in Peru from 61,896 to 118,678.

Cuba wants the hawskbill turtle to be transferred from Appendix I to Appendix II, which would allow it to sell stocks of around 7,800 kilos of shells accumulated as part of a conservation and management programme carried out by the Cuban government from 1993 to 2002.

A report by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Traffic warned of the increase in trafficking of wildlife by organisations dedicated to other illegal activities, such as drug trafficking cartels and the so-called Russian Mafia.

“Organised crime groups get involved in the most lucrative areas of illegal wildlife trade, such as caviar smuggling,” using routes established for the trafficking of people, small weapons and illegal drugs, they said.

In Britain, 50 percent of those prosecuted for trafficking wild species already had criminal records, the report noted.

“In Brazil, recent estimates suggest that up to 40 per cent of illegal drug shipments are combined with wildlife,” the groups added.

And in the United States, customs officials in Miami, Florida discovered that 225 of a shipment of 312 boa constrictors from Colombia had been forced to swallow cocaine-filled condoms. A total of 39 kilos were recovered, but all of the snakes died, the organisations said.

“In Latin America, powerful drug cartels operate in the countries where many endangered species are found, and use their covert distribution networks to profitably trade in these species as well as drugs,” the report stated.

WWF and Traffic also cited the case of birds smuggled by plane from Australia and exchanged for heroin in Bangkok, which is flown back to Australia to be sold there.