CONSERVATION: Survival Countdown Begins – For Elephants to Lions

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Sep 29 2004 (IPS) - The campaign to save the African elephant from the chopping block comes down to contrasting views over the ivory trade between two African countries – Kenya and Namibia. And this heated debate is expected to dominate a major conservation conference hosted by Thailand this week.

Environmentalists are hoping that the Kenyan view prevails – calling for a 20-year moratorium on the sale of ivory products across the world.

Namibia, on the other hand, is seeking to lift the prevailing ban on ivory trade, which was imposed in 1989. The south-western African nation is pushing for permission to be granted for an annual export quota of 2,000 kilograms of raw ivory and ”unlimited quantities of carved ivory”

”Namibia’s proposal must be rejected,” Shelly Petch of the London-based Born Free Foundation, told a press conference here Wednesday.

Kenya’s proposal is a positive one, added Peter Pueschel of the Hamburg-based International Fund for Animal Welfare.

In a bid to throw its weight behind the Kenyan initiative, the Born Free Foundation released a report this week on the debilitating impact of the ivory trade on the world’s most majestic beast.

”Between 1998 and 2004 at least 95.3 tonnes of ivory have been reported seized and, in addition, more than 12,591 elephants (Asian and African) have been reported poached,” the 44-page report, ‘Tip of the Tusk,’ revealed.

”Ninety-five tonnes roughly represents the ivory of more than 15,000 dead elephants,” it stated, adding further that not all the illegal ivory being traded is seized.

The passions that have begun to swirl over the ivory trade debate are one of many expected to surface during 13th meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). The two-week gathering of the 166 nations who are signatories of CITES begins on Saturday.

In the countdown to this biennial event, environmentalists have been drumming up support to protect wild elephants along with other animals, birds, fish, and trees.

”There is conclusive data that lions are in trouble,” said Will Travers, chairman of the Species Survival Network (SSN), a global coalition of some 80 wildlife protection groups.

In 2004, the lion population in Africa was between 16,500 to 30,000 animals, down from the 30,000 to 100,000 lions that roamed through 30 African countries eight years ago, he added.

Travers attributed the decline of lions to a loss of habitat, its killing by man when the animal came into contact with people and for trophy hunting.

”Nearly 600 lion trophies are removed from Africa every year,” he revealed.

The plight of the tigers is as severe, said Debbie Banks of the London-based Environment Investigation Agency. The world’s tiger population, she added, stands at 5,000, as against the 100,000 animals that were around a century ago.

The major threat for tigers and leopards is the demand for their skin. Over the last five years, the skin trade has ”spiralled out of control,” with criminal networks spanning India, Nepal and China playing a lead role, she asserted.

But Thailand’s move to ban the trade of the Irrawaddy dolphins during the October meeting reveals the dangers to fauna and flora beyond trophies and souvenirs. This delightful mammal, which has the capacity to stand on its tail in water, is under threat by a growing demand for its presence in ”dolphin shows” in some Asian countries.

”This species is facing a real threat from international trade,” said Sue Fisher of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. ”It is being captured for dolphinaria. The Irrawaddy dolphin is a prime target.”

The humphead wrasse, a fish common in the seas of the Indo-Pacific, on the other hand, is also fast perishing to due its capture for restaurants in Hong Kong, China and Singapore, states the SSN.

The Bangkok meeting is also expected to square off over ramin, a hardwood tree common in South-east Asia that is being overexploited due to its high value – 1,000 U.S. dollars per cubic meter.

According to Carroll Muffet of the Washington D.C.-based Defenders of Wildlife, the wood from this tree from Indonesia and Malaysia is used to make baby cribs and billiard cues for the international market.

The Indonesian government, he said, wants to place the ramin under a list of flora and fauna that controls the illegal trade of the wood.

Such proposals by governments – either to place species under a list called Appendix 1, under which trade is banned due to fear of species extinction, or Appendix 2, where trade of flora and fauna is permitted but monitored – will be the thrust of the CITES meeting.

CITES, which is the world’s largest conservation treaty, has gained global support since its conception in 1975 from the 20 nations who were behind it at the start to 166 countries by 2004.