Some 50,000 elephants are being killed each year in Africa, alongside 1,000 rhinos, leaving perhaps as few as 250,000 elephants in the wild globally. Credit: PJ KAPDostie/cc by 2.0

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Jul 2 2014 (IPS)

Environmentalists are formally urging President Barack Obama to enact trade sanctions on Mozambique over the country’s alleged chronic facilitation of elephant and rhinoceros poaching through broad swathes of southern Africa.

Investigators say substantial evidence exists of Mozambique’s failure to abide by international conventions against wildlife trafficking, including to back up allegations of state complicity.“We believe that there are ex-military officials who are providing political protection to the [trafficking] syndicates who are arming and funding these poaching teams." -- Allan Thornton

While President Obama last year mounted a new initiative by the U.S. government to tackle international wildlife trafficking, with a particular focus on ivory, some say Mozambique’s actions are undermining those efforts – and threatening these species worldwide.

A new petition, publicly announced Wednesday, now provides evidence on the issue and urges the president to make use of legal authorities to encourage Mozambique to crack down on poachers.

“Mozambique continues to play an ever-growing and uncontained role in rhinoceros and elephant poaching,” Susie Ellis, executive director of the International Rhino Foundation, one of the petitioners, told IPS.

“Although they have been given direction by the international community to enact certain controls, those have been only superficial and have had no meaningful effect. If you look at the large-scale poaching and illegal trade in rhino horn and elephant ivory out of Mozambique, it’s directly undercut President Obama’s [efforts] on wildlife trafficking.”

Increasingly working hand in hand with organised crime, poachers over the past three years have killed record numbers of elephants and rhinoceroses, particularly in Africa. Some 50,000 elephants are being killed each year in Africa, alongside 1,000 rhinos, leaving perhaps as few as 250,000 elephants in the wild globally.

Driving this illicit market is increased consumer demand in Asia, particularly in China and Vietnam. According to a U.N. report from last year, large seizures of ivory bound for Asia have more than doubled since 2009.

The new petition focuses on the central international agreement around wildlife trafficking, known as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), and warns that Mozambique’s outsized role in African ivory poaching is diluting the convention’s effectiveness. The CITES standing committee is meeting next week in Switzerland.

“Available evidence indicates that Mozambican nationals constitute the highest number of foreign arrests for poaching in South Africa. Organized crime syndicates based in Mozambique are driving large scale illegal trade in rhino horn and elephant ivory,” the petition states.

“Given the scope and depth of the illegal killing and trade in rhino and elephant products by Mozambican nationals, we urge the United States to … enact substantial trade sanctions.”

High-level complicity

Supporters say that strong action by the Mozambican authorities would have a significant and immediate impact on the global supply of illicit ivory.

Officials reportedly estimate that 80 to 90 percent of all poachers in South Africa’s massive Kruger National Park are Mozambican nationals. Local groups say that on most nights more than a dozen separate poaching parties can be prowling the park, most from well-documented “poaching villages” located across the border in Mozambique.

Meanwhile, enforcement of wildlife-related legislation in Mozambique is said to be essentially non-existent, with penalties for poaching and trafficking thus far not effective. Yet changing that situation has been complicated by what appears to be state collusion.

“It’s impossible for that level of illegal activity to be going on without high-level complicity,” Allan Thornton, president of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a watchdog group based here and in London that co-authored the new petition, told IPS.

“We believe that there are ex-military officials who are providing political protection to the [trafficking] syndicates who are arming and funding these poaching teams. There is substantial evidence implicating both the police and military.”

Mozambique keeps strict control over the types of weapons used by the country’s poachers, Thornton notes, yet such weapons are available to the military. Similarly, police and military uniforms have repeatedly been found in poaching camps.

Thornton says that putting together the new petition took several months, due to the mass of evidence available.

“If all Mozambican citizens were prevented from illicitly crossing over the border, poaching would drop significantly. But there has been no enforcement on the Mozambique side, despite legal obligations under CITES,” he says.

“We believe that the Mozambique government should be held accountable for their activities and act rapidly against these poachers, criminal syndicates and those protecting them. They could close this trade literally in a week.

Unparalleled scope

Thornton says his office is not yet clear on whether the Obama administration has exerted diplomatic pressure on the Mozambique government over the issue of wildlife trafficking. But in filing the new petition, these groups are highlighting the fact that the president does indeed have the legal backing to act on the issue.

Under U.S. legislation known as the Pelly Amendment, the president is allowed to impose trade sanctions if a country is certified to be “diminishing the effectiveness” of an international conservation programme. (U.S. officials could not be reached for comment for this story.)

Further, there is notable precedent under which past determinations – set in motion by EIA petitions – have met with particular success. Two decades ago, for instance, a similar petition was lodged around the trafficking of rhinoceros and tiger parts through Taiwan into China.

That effort resulted in U.S. trade sanctions. Over the following two years, both the Taiwanese and Chinese governments engaged in a broad crackdown on these trades.

“This had a huge impact on reducing demand [for ivory] and reducing the poaching of rhinos virtually around the world,” Thornton says.

“We saw rhino populations stabilise worldwide, because two of the biggest markets had closed for demand. This is the same thing we’re now looking for in Mozambique.”

He continues: “And we’re hoping for a particularly prompt response, because the scope of illegal activities we’re currently seeing – where one country is sending hundreds of poachers into another country – is almost unparalleled.”

Siamese crocodile found in Phnom Penh; poaching drove the species to the brink of extinction. Credit: Robert Carmichael/IPS

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Jul 2 2013 (IPS)

President Barack Obama on Monday announced a series of new initiatives to combat spiking levels of international poaching and draft a new national plan on wildlife trafficking, an industry that has grown so significantly in recent years that the president now calls it an “international crisis”.

According to an executive order issued by the president Monday, the United States will now make available millions of dollars for strengthened coordination and training of personnel in developing countries. Of this, 10 million dollars will be earmarked for Africa, where President Obama is currently on an eight-day tour.

Over the past few years, poachers have killed record numbers of elephants and rhinoceroses, particularly in Africa. Analysts and lawmakers are warning that this illicit industry has now been firmly taken over by international organised crime and militant groups armed with high-tech weapons and tools.

“Poaching operations have expanded beyond small-scale, opportunistic actions to coordinated slaughter commissioned by armed and organized criminal syndicates,” Obama said in the executive order.

“The survival of protected wildlife species … has beneficial economic, social, and environmental impacts that are important to all nations. Wildlife trafficking reduces those benefits while generating billions of dollars in illicit revenues each year, contributing to the illegal economy, fueling instability, and undermining security.”

Under Obama’s initiative, significant new focus will also be placed on regulations here in the United States, which is second only to China as the largest market for illegally trafficked wildlife products. The president has ordered the creation of an interagency task force and an external advisory council, both of which will now look into how pertinent U.S. regulations can be tightened and strengthened.

The president issued the new order while in Tanzania, widely considered one of the hotspots of the illicit ivory trade. According to figures offered Monday by White House officials, worldwide wildlife trafficking could be bringing in upwards of 10 billion dollars a year, while others have suggested that figure could be almost twice as much.

“This U.S. high-level attention will help raise the global profile of wildlife trafficking,” Allan Thornton, president of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), an advocacy group, told IPS in a statement.

“The poaching epidemic across Africa threatens to wipe out rhinoceros and elephant populations, and we applaud President Obama’s decision to combat the unsustainable killing of and trade of elephants, rhinos and other threatened species.”

More valuable than gold

According to some estimates, wildlife trafficking is now the fourth-largest transnational crime in the world, yet has never been attacked with the focus or resources of other such crimes.

The task force, to be headed by the Interior, Justice and State Departments, will now draft a new national strategy on wildlife trafficking within the next six months, aimed at both “combating trafficking and curbing demand”. Obama has given specific instructions that it should look specifically at how to use U.S. anti-organised crime legislation in the fight.

“In the last few years, wildlife trafficking has really exploded in terms of scale and also in terms of the types of poachers and organised crime networks that are involved in this activity … particularly in Southern Africa and East Africa, it’s reaching epidemic proportions,” Grant Harris, the senior director for Africa for the U.S. National Security Council, told reporters Monday.

“The United States is the second-biggest market, lamentably, and so … [the] Presidential Task Force will be looking at this issue and developing a national strategy to make sure that, as the United States, we’re organised in the right way and that we’re being strategic about how to do this.”

Harris noted that smugglers are receiving some 30,000 dollars per pound for a rhinoceros horn – “literally more valuable than its weight in gold” – and that global rhino populations have dropped by more than 90 percent over the past half-century.

Likewise, some 30,000 elephants were killed in Africa last year alone, the highest number in two decades. The illicit trade in ivory is thought to have doubled just over the past six years, driven by new Internet-fuelled sales and growing market demand (and power) in rising economies, particularly China.

“These syndicates are robbing Africa of its wealth,” Carter Roberts, president of the U.S. office of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), said Monday.

“President Obama’s commitment to help stop the global crime wave that is emptying the continent’s forests and savannas is welcome news. It gives a critical boost for everyone involved in fighting wildlife trafficking – from rangers on the ground to local conservation groups to decision-makers around the globe.”

Security issue

The move comes just two months after the United Nations officially characterised international wildlife and timber trafficking as a serious organised crime.

That resolution was put forward by the United States and Peru, in line with what the National Security Agency’s Harris characterises as a new “massive diplomatic campaign” by Washington. This focus is driven in part by the security threats posed by wildlife trafficking.

“It’s a security issue. As we see criminal networks getting increasingly involved, you see poachers with night-vision goggles and high-powered rifles,” the Harris noted.

“You see also some rebel militias trading in ivory and rhinoceros horns as a source of currency and value, and so that’s fueling some of the problems and conflicts that we’re seeing.”

According to a new report from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), militia groups in Somalia and Sudan are funding their operations in part by trading ivory for weapons. It also notes reports that militants aligned with Al-Qaeda have been similarly tapping into illegal wildlife trading through South and Southeast Asia.

IFAW suggests this lucrative trade has been made possible by ineffective national and international legislation and decades of indifference towards the issue by law enforcement.

“Compared to other transnational criminal activities, the low risk of detection, relatively small penalties, and minimal consequences for perpetrating wildlife crime are attractive incentives to participate in illegal trade in wildlife,” the report, released in June, states.

“Wildlife trade is considered a low-risk enterprise for the criminals involved, in large part because wildlife trafficking is treated as a low priority by many law enforcement agencies.”

On Monday, IFAW “applauded” President Obama’s new initiatives, with Jeffrey Flocken, IFAW North American regional director noting: “This action gives recognition to the threat the illicit trade poses not only to animals like elephants and rhinos, but also to people.”

A white rhino at a sanctuary in South Africa’s Limpopo Province. Last year, poachers killed 668 rhinos in South Africa. Credit: Jennifer McKellar/IPS

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Apr 29 2013 (IPS)

Environment groups are applauding a new United Nations decision to officially characterise international wildlife and timber trafficking as a serious organised crime, in a move that advocates say will finally give international law enforcement officials the tools necessary to counter spiking rates of poaching.

Crimes related to the trafficking of flora and fauna are today one of the most significant money-makers for criminal networks, amounting to some 17 billion dollars a year, according to some estimates. That would make this black market the fourth-largest transnational crime in the world, according to Global Financial Integrity, a Washington watchdog group."The most important element here is the potential deterrence of significant prison time.” -- WWF's Wendy Elliott

On Friday, a new resolution on the issue was adopted almost unanimously at the end of a summit of the U.N. Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ, often called the U.N. Crime Commission). The resolution, put forward by the United States and Peru, now urges member states to formally view the illicit trade in wild flora or fauna as a “serious crime”.

“It is commendable that the U.N. CCPCJ is now taking note of wildlife crime,” Peter Paul van Dijk, director of the tortoise and freshwater turtle conservation programme at Conservation International, an international network, told IPS.

“This demonstrates how wildlife crime is no longer perceived as a proportionally minor type of crime affecting specific species, but is now beginning to be understood as being symptomatic of underlying problems of natural resource security, governance and transparency, and ineffective international actions.”

He continues: “International wildlife crime can generate the funds to fuel insurgencies and instability, and warrants an equally coordinated and prioritised response from the international community, including the United Nations. “

Under U.N. rules, characterisation as a “serious crime” can require stiff sentences of four or more years in prison, and will also allow the United Nations office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to broaden its role in combating the trade. For years, environment-related crimes have recorded one of the world’s lowest conviction rates.

“This is a breakthrough resolution in terms of recognising the serious nature of wildlife crimes, encouraging governments to view this not just as an environmental issue but as a crime akin to human or arms trafficking,” Wendy Elliott, the leader of the wildlife crime campaign at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), a global conservation group, told IPS from Geneva.

“For so many years, poachers and wildlife traffickers have received fines and quickly been let back onto the streets. The most important element here is the potential deterrence of significant prison time.”

Development impact

Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in poaching, particularly in Africa. Many suggest this is being driven largely by the increasing force of consumer spending in Asia.

Over the past decade and a half, experts say, South Africa has seen a staggering 5,000 percent increase in the illegal hunting of rhinoceroses, while elephant poaching is also currently at record levels, at some 30,000 deaths each year. Meanwhile, nearly a third of all global timber today is thought to have been illegally logged.

While wildlife crime was first discussed by the U.N. General Assembly a dozen years ago, Elliott says the issue has never been as serious as it is today.

“Historically, poaching was a small-scale local activity, but the value of both the product and the demand is now seen at levels akin to other major illegal commodities,” she notes.

“In turn, that has attracted organised criminal syndicates, so the response needed is something completely different. That’s the shift we’re now starting to see, but we need to really ramp this up globally – wildlife crimes prey on a finite set of resources, after all, and the clock is ticking.”

Much of the new international interest in wildlife and timber trafficking can almost certainly be traced to the groups that have become involved, as well as the illicit funding they’ve been able to secure. According to a new brief put out by the WWF and other environment organisations ahead of the U.N. Crime Commission meetings, these groups include rebels in Somalia, Rwanda, Sudan and others.

“Illegal trade in wildlife alone amasses profits of about 10 billion dollars each year, [and] the illicit trade is intertwined with corruption, money laundering, and the trafficking of other commodities such as weapons and narcotics,” Brian A. Nichols, an assistant secretary in the U.S. Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, told the U.N. Crime Commission in introducing the resolution.

“It undermines security, stability and the rule of law. The criminals that illegally poach and trade in wildlife are part of integrated networks that span continents. They devastate local communities and have pushed more and more species toward extinction.”

Indeed, the impact of wildlife poaching on local economies and development efforts can be extremely significant.

“These crimes are not only putting the survival of endangered species in peril, but are also threatening security and sustainable economic development,” Elliott notes.

“In many African countries, wildlife continues to constitute a major source of family income and gross domestic product. So this is imperative from a development perspective, potentially endangering years of development advances.”

Supply, demand

Following the passage of the new U.N. resolution, much of the impetus will now fall to national governments to oversee a strengthening of their anti-poaching and customs systems. Next week, governments in Central Africa are slated to meet to discuss links between poachers and ongoing security concerns.

“The proof of commitment will be in not only how many governments ensure adequate penalties, but how many invest in initiatives to engage police and customs investigators in combating these crimes,” Debbie Banks, a senior campaigner with the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a London-based watchdog, told IPS.

“Combating wildlife crime is not rocket science. The solutions and tools are widely available, but it’s a matter of how much governments are prepared to invest in them. We now have some great political commitments articulated in the new resolution, so it’s time for action.”

Importantly, the new resolution will apply equally to countries that have serious illicit export problems – for instance, in Central Africa – and to countries where demand tends to be highest, particularly in Asia.

“These increased penalties will need to affect not just those doing the supplying but also those creating the demand,” WWF’s Elliott says.

“To really reduce demand, it has become increasingly clear that we can’t just rely on awareness-raising campaigns – there has to be enforcement, as well. Unless the public feels real consequences for purchasing these items, demand reduction will be very hard to achieve.”