The Africa Protected Areas Congress (APAC), the first-ever continent-wide gathering of African leaders, citizens, and interest groups, gathered in Kigali from Monday, Jul 18 to Jul 23 to discuss the role of protected areas in conserving nature. Rwanda hosted the conference in partnership with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF). CREDIT: Aimable Twahirwa/IPS

By Aimable Twahirwa
Kigali, Jul 21 2022 (IPS)

For many years, East African countries were considered wildlife trafficking hotspots. Now conservation organisations have started to mobilise all stakeholders to combat the illegal trade that targets animals – some to the edge of extinction.

“A slight progress has been made in combatting the illicit trade of wildlife and their products, but Governments from the region still face grave challenges posed by the fact that they are mostly single-species focused on their conservation efforts,” Andrew McVey, climate advisor at World Wildlife Fund (WWF) from East African region told IPS.

According to experts, while countries are committed to cooperation and collaboration to combat poaching and illegal wildlife trafficking within the shared ecosystems, organised criminal networks are cashing in on elephant poaching. Trafficking ivory has reached unprecedented volumes, and syndicates are operating with impunity and little fear of prosecution.

Delegates at the first Africa Protected Areas Congress (APAC) noted the lack of strict sanctions and penalties for illegal activities and limited disincentives to prevent poaching, trafficking or illicit trade impacted efforts to counter wildlife trafficking across the region. The gathering in Kigali was organised by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Fidele Ruzigandekwe, the Deputy Executive Secretary for Programs at the Rwandan-based Greater Virunga Transboundary Collaboration (GVTC), told IPS that sharing information, community empowerment and enforcing laws and judiciary system were among crucial factors needed to slow the illegal trade of wildlife. The GVTC is a conservation NGO working in Greater Virunga Landscape across transborder zones between Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

“There is also a need to rely on technology such as high-tech surveillance devices to combat wildlife poachers and traffickers,” Ruzigandekwe added.

Elephant tusks are of high value in the Far East, particularly in China, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia, where many use them for ornamentation and religious purposes. Both scientists and activists believe that despite current mobilisation, the demand is still increasing as transnational syndicates involved in wildlife crime are exploiting new technologies and networks to escape from arrests, prosecutions, or convictions

Although some experts were delighted to note that countries had made some progress in cooperating to fight trans-border wildlife trafficking, estimates by NGO TRAFFIC indicate that about 55 African Elephants are poached on the continent every day.

INTERPOL has identified East Africa as one of several priority regions for enhanced law enforcement responses to ivory trafficking.

Reports by the INTERPOL indicate that law enforcement officials recently discovered an illegal shipment of ivory inside shipping containers, primarily from Tanzania. It was to be transported to Asian maritime transit hubs.

Both scientists and decision-makers unanimously agreed on the need to mobilise more funding to support measures to tackle ivory trafficking.

“Duplication of conservation efforts and inadequate collaboration among countries has been one of the greatest challenges to implementation,” Simon Kiarie, Principal Tourism Officer at the East African Community (EAC) Secretariat, told IPS.

To cope with these challenges, member countries of the EAC, including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, South Sudan, and Rwanda, have jointly developed a Regional Strategy to Combat Poaching and Illegal Trade and Tra­cking of Wildlife and Wildlife Products which is being implemented at the regional and national levels.

The strategy revolves around six key pillars, including strengthening policy framework, enhancing law enforcement capacity, research and development, involvement of local communities and supporting regional and international collaboration.

During a session on the sidelines of the congress, many delegates expressed strong feelings that when the elephant population is threatened by poaching, local communities suffer too.

“Through the illegal trade in wildlife, local communities lose socially and economically important resources (…) the benefits from illegal wildlife trade are not shared among communities,” Telesphore Ngoga, a conservation analyst at Rwanda Development Board (RDB), a government body with conservation in its mandate told IPS.

The Rwandan Government introduced a Tourism Revenue Sharing programme in 2005 to share a percentage (currently 10%) of the total tourism park revenues with the communities living around the parks.

The major purpose of this community initiative is to encourage environmental and wildlife conservation and give back to the communities living near parks, who are socially and economically impacted by wildlife and other touristic endeavours.

Manasseh Karambizi, a former elephant poacher from Kayonza, a district in Eastern Rwanda, who became a park ranger, told IPS that after being sensitised about the dangers of wildlife hunting, he is now aware of the benefits of wildlife conservation.

“Thanks to the income generated from tourism activities from the neighbouring national park, communities are benefiting a lot. I am now able to feed my family, and my children are going to school,” the 46-year-old father of five said.

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President Macron and Harrison Ford among speakers at the Congress Opening Ceremony. Credit: IUCN Ecodeo

By Guy Dinmore
St Davids, Wales, Oct 4 2021 (IPS)

The world’s most influential conservation congress, meeting for the first time since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, has issued its starkest warning to date over the planet’s escalating climate and biodiversity emergencies.

“Humanity has reached a tipping point. Our window of opportunity to respond to these interlinked emergencies and share planetary resources equitably is narrowing quickly,” the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) declared in its Marseille Manifesto at the conclusion of its World Conservation Congress in the French port city.

“Our existing systems do not work. Economic ‘success’ can no longer come at nature’s expense. We urgently need systemic reform.”

The Congress, held every four years but delayed from 2020 by the pandemic, acts as a kind of global parliament on major conservation issues, bringing together a unique combination of states, governmental agencies, NGOs, Indigenous Peoples’ Organisations and affiliate members. Its resolutions and recommendations do not set policy but have shaped UN treaties and conventions in the past and will help set the agenda for three key upcoming UN summits – food systems security, climate change and biodiversity.

“The decisions taken here in Marseille will drive action to tackle the biodiversity and climate crises in the crucial decade to come,” said Dr Bruno Oberle, IUCN Director-General.

“Collectively, IUCN’s members are sending a powerful message to Glasgow and Kunming: the time for fundamental change is now,” he added, referring to the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) to be hosted by the UK in November, and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 15) to be held in China in two parts, online next month and in person in April-May 2022.

The week-long IUCN Congress, attended in Marseille by nearly 6,000 delegates with over 3,500 more participating online, was opened by French President Emmanuel Macron who declared: “There is no vaccine for a sick planet.”

He urged world leaders to make financial commitments for conservation of nature equivalent to those for the climate, listing such tasks as ending plastic pollution, stopping the deforestation of rainforests by eradicating their raw materials in supply chains, and phasing out pesticides.

Congress participants during an Exhibition event of the Sixth Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network. Credit: IUCN Ecodeo

China’s prime minister, Li Keqiang, said in a recorded message that protecting nature and tackling the climate crisis were “global not-traditional security issues”.

While noting that some scientists fear that the climate emergency is “now close to an irreversible tipping point”, the Marseille Manifesto also spoke of “reason to be optimistic”.

“We are perfectly capable of making transformative change and doing it swiftly… To invest in nature is to invest in our collective future.”

Major themes that dominated the IUCN Congress included: the post-2020 biodiversity conservation framework; the role of nature in the global recovery from the pandemic; the climate emergency; and the need to transform the global financial system and direct investments into projects that benefit nature.

Among the 148 resolutions and recommendations voted in Marseille and through pre-event online voting, the Congress called for 80 percent of the Amazon and 30 percent of Earth’s surface—land and sea—to be designated “protected areas” to halt and reverse the loss of wildlife.

Members also voted overwhelmingly to recommend a moratorium on deep-sea mining and reform the International Seabed Authority, an intergovernmental regulatory body.

“The resounding Yes in support for a global freeze on deep seabed mining is a clear signal that there is no social licence to open the deep seafloor to mining,” Jessica Battle, leader of the WWF’s Deep Sea Mining Initiative, said, quoted by AFP news agency.

The emergency motion calling for four-fifths of the Amazon basin to be declared a protected area by 2025 was submitted by COICA, an umbrella group representing more than two million indigenous peoples across nine South American nations. It passed with overwhelming support.

Representatives from COICA and Cuencas Sagradas present their bioregional plan for the Amazon during a press conference. Credit: IUCN Ecodeo

Jose Gregorio Diaz Mirabal, general coordinator of COICA and a leader of the Curripaco people in Venezuela, said the proposal was a “plan for the salvation of indigenous peoples and the planet”.

The Amazon has lost some 10,000 square kilometres every year to deforestation over the past two decades. Brazil is not an IUCN member and thus could not take part in the vote which runs against President Jair Bolsonaro’s agenda.

The five-page Marseille Manifesto makes repeated references to indigenous peoples and local communities, noting “their central role in conservation, as leaders and custodians of biodiversity” and amongst those most vulnerable to the climate and nature emergencies.

“Around the world, those working to defend the environment are under attack,” the document recalled.

Global Witness, a campaign group, reported that at least 227 environmental and land rights activists were killed in 2020, the highest number documented for a second consecutive year. Indigenous peoples accounted for one-third of victims. Colombia had the highest recorded attacks.

The resolution calling for 30 percent of the planet’s land and ocean area to be given protected status by 2030, said selected zones must include “biodiversity hotspots”,  be rigorously monitored and enforced, and recognise the rights of indigenous peoples to their lands, territories and resources. The  ‘30 by 30’ target is meant as a message to the UN biodiversity summit which is tasked with delivering a treaty to protect nature by next May.

Many conservationists are campaigning for a more ambitious target of 50 percent.

However, the 30 by 30 initiative, already formally backed by France, the UK and Costa Rica, is of considerable concern to some indigenous peoples who have been frequently sidelined from environmental efforts and sometimes even removed from their land in the name of conservation.

The IUCN Congress also released its updated IUCN Red List. The Komodo dragon, the world’s largest lizard, was reclassified from ‘vulnerable’ status to ‘endangered’, while 37 percent of shark and ray species are now reported to be threatened with extinction. Four species of tuna are showing signs of recovery, however.

Craig Hilton-Taylor, head of IUCN’s Head of Red List Unit, said the current rate of species extinctions is running 100 to 1,000 times the ‘normal’ or ‘background’ rate, a warning that Earth is on the cusp of the sixth extinction event. The fifth, known as the Cretaceous mass extinction event, occurred 65 million years ago, killing an estimated 78 percent of species, including the remaining non-avian dinosaurs.

One of the more controversial motions adopted – on “synthetic biology” or genetic engineering – could actually promote the localised extinction of a species. The motion opens the way for more research and experimentation in technology called gene drive. This could be used to fight invasive species, such as rodents, snakes and mosquitos, which have wiped out other species, particularly birds, in island habitats.

It was left to Harrison Ford, a 79-year-old Hollywood actor and activist, to offer hope to the Congress by paying tribute to young environmentalists.

“Reinforcements are on the way,” he said. “They’re sitting in lecture halls now, venturing into the field for the very first time, writing their thesis, they’re leading marches, organising communities, are learning to turn passion into progress and potential into power…In a few years, they will be here.”

Andrea Athanas, senior director of the African Wildlife Foundation, affirmed there was a sense of optimism in the Marseille air, in recognition that solutions are at hand.

“Indigenous systems were lauded for demonstrating harmonious relationships between people and nature. Protected areas in some places have rebounded and are now teeming with wildlife. The finance industry has awoken to the risks businesses run from degraded environments and are calculating those risks into the price of capital.

“Crisis brings an opportunity for change, and the investments in a post COVID recovery present a chance to fundamentally reshape our relationship with nature, putting values for life and for each other at the centre of economic decision-making,” he told IPS.

View the complete Marseille Manifesto here.

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The killing of rhinos by poachers has risen sharply since South Africa started easing COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. Their horns are cut off and trafficked mostly to Asia. Credit: AWF wildlife archive

By Guy Dinmore
St David’s, Wales, Aug 6 2021 (IPS)

A recent seizure at Johannesburg’s international airport of a large consignment of rhino horns confirmed worst fears – illegal trafficking of wildlife and the plundering of treasured species is back with a vengeance after a Covid-19 lockdown lull.

Destined for Kuala Lumpur, the 32 pieces of rhino horns weighing a total of 160kg were intercepted by a sniffer dog on July 17.

Rhinos in South Africa were being killed by poachers at the rate of three a day in 2019. But with domestic and international travel restrictions imposed because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the daily toll in 2020 fell to around one. However, a subsequent lockdown easing has given rise to “serious numbers” of rhino poaching incidents, according to WWF.

Carcases of rhinos left by poachers to bleed to death are unfortunately just one of the most visible images of the global illegal trafficking in wildlife – a multi-billion dollar industry often run by transnational syndicates, sometimes alongside trafficking in drugs, arms and people.

From the seas to the skies, the industrial-scale killing of animals, illegal logging of timber and the plundering of rare plants are driving many species to extinction.

Tigers – their bones and other body parts used in traditional medicine — are among the most threatened victims, with 97 percent of the wild tiger population estimated to have disappeared over the past century. Cheetahs are vanishing because of the demand for pets.

A quarter of shark species are now facing extinction, mostly due to illegal and unsustainable fishing. All seven remaining species of sea turtles are at risk. New species of orchids – there are about 28,000 known to science – have disappeared to collectors and thus become extinct in the wild before they are even recorded. Millions of birds are traded illegally each year. The list goes on and on.

The most trafficked mammal on earth is the pangolin, a scaly ant-eating creature. More than a million are estimated to have been poached from the wild in the last decade for their meat, skin and scales. All eight species are deemed at risk of extinction.

All eight species of pangolin, four in Asia and four in Africa, are threatened with extinction, mostly because of illegal poaching and trafficking. Credit: AWF wildlife archive

The Covid-19 pandemic has hammered home what scientists were long saying – that wildlife trafficking is also a serious threat to global security. Bats and pangolins are the focus of research into the evolutionary path of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes the Covid-19 disease. A recent study by the Francis Crick Institute showed that SARS-CoV-2 could in theory have moved to humans from pangolins, after originating in a currently unknown bat coronavirus.

Three-quarters of all emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic, transferred from animals to humans, facilitated by environmental destruction and wildlife crime.

These findings only further underscore efforts by the International Union for Conservation of Nature to shape humanity’s response to the planet’s conservation crises. The IUCN World Conservation Congress, initially delayed by the pandemic and now to be held from 3-11 September in Marseille, is the world’s leading conservation event where government, civil society and indigenous peoples’ organisations will join discussions, debate and vote on motions that will set priorities and drive conservation and sustainable development action.

Two key motions tackle illegal wildlife trafficking: Motion 50 on implementing international efforts to tackle the role of cybercrime, the internet and social media in enabling traffickers, and Motion 65 on engaging the private sector to combat wildlife trafficking.

Jose Louies, a specialist in wildlife crime prevention with the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), a co-sponsor of Motion 50, says governments must make the illegal wildlife trade a top priority and set out clear guidelines on wildlife cybercrime. IT companies must also set policies to stop, control and monitor traffickers using their platforms.

Louies told IPS that WTI’s covert agents had been following pangolin traders online in recent months, connecting with suppliers and buyers from several countries.

Pangolin scales sold illegally through the internet by wildlife traffickers. The pangolin, sometimes called a scaly anteater, is the world’s most trafficked mammal. Credit: Jose Louies / Wildlife Trust of India.

“Most of these leads were picked up from a single social media platform where the buyers and sellers posted comments with email ids/ phone numbers to connect,” he added. ”We had 114 buyers and 69 sellers,” he said, naming the sample countries as Pakistan, Nepal, Iraq, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Myanmar and 17 states in India.

“The use of social media and messaging apps to build connections between suspects at various levels of trade is a serious matter of concern. Such fluidic and organic systems will enable a network to regenerate quicker than a conventional network.”

WTI sees IUCN as the leading global body to make recommendations and influence policies, regardless of political borders, and to act as an enabler for global conservation policies and practices. “Conservation is not an exclusive job of conservationists – it’s the collective efforts of everyone,” says Louies.

Among the various elements of Motion 50, IUCN members call on governments to strengthen legislation to tackle cyber-enabled wildlife trafficking; collaborate more in cross-border investigations; encourage and protect whistle-blowers; and encourage technology companies to step up efforts to stop online trafficking.

Known as Hatha Jodi, these dried penises of the monitor lizard were sold illegally by traffickers online. Credit: Jose Louies / Wildlife Trust of India.

The Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online, launched in 2018, now brings together over 40 companies from across the world in partnership with wildlife experts at WWF, TRAFFIC, and IFAW for an industry-wide approach to shut down online marketplaces for wildlife traffickers

The latest companies to join are China’s Douyin, a popular short video social media platform, and Huya, a video game company.
As the Coalition admits, advances in technology and connectivity, combined with rising buying power and demand for illegal wildlife products, have increased the ease of exchange from poacher to consumer. ”A largely unregulated online market allows criminals to sell illegally obtained wildlife products across the globe. Purchasing elephant ivory, tiger cubs, and pangolin scales is as easy as click, pay, ship.”

But despite such coordinated efforts, including GLACY+ involving Interpol, trafficking is getting even bigger.

“In Africa, cybercrime is escalating on many platforms via the internet,” says Philip Muruthi, vice president of the African Wildlife Foundation, also a co-sponsor of Motion 50. “You just need to do a Google search and you will find someone trying to sell some wildlife product or wildlife… but the capacity to deal with wildlife cybercrime is very low across the board. This is something that we have noted across Africa – a growing silent problem – for which we have limited knowledge and capacity to turn around.”

AWF has a program to train and equip law enforcement officers to combat wildlife cybercrime, starting in Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, but governments and other players could do much more, Muruthi tells IPS.

“What is agreed at these IUCN World Conservation Congresses often results in enhanced collective action. The issue of wildlife cybercrime may be elusive at a glance but deep analyses reveals it warrants local, regional and global attention,” Muruthi adds.

Stressing the importance of its unique structure spanning governments, NGOs, the private sector, individuals and indigenous peoples, AWF also benefits from being able to access more potential collaborators and span disciplines and themes.

Steven Galster, chair of Freeland which describes itself as a “lean, frontline international NGO with a team of law enforcement, development and communications specialists” fighting wildlife trafficking and human slavery, says traffickers are winning an unequal battle. Richer countries are not backing up their political promises with action, he says.

“I’m a big fan of IUCN. It’s an important body,” Galster tells IPS, praising IUCN’s Asia team. But he urges IUCN to shift priorities.

More broadly, Freeland, a co-sponsor of Motion 065, is calling on IUCN to go further and push for a global suspension of commercial trade in wild animals as a matter of urgency to save biodiversity and avoid another pandemic, rather than just trying to stamp out illegal wildlife trade as defined by CITES conventions.

“Legal trade also carries virus transmission risks. There remains so much unknown about the many viruses out there, and how they may mutate, that we should not be confining our containment to only some species of families of animals,” Galster says. ”The precautionary principle should be pushed harder than ever in wake of Covid-19.”

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Although strong gains have been made in some areas of conservation, many species are facing increasing threats to their survival.

According to an update from the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources Red List of Threatened Species, conservation successes like the Iberian Lynx and the Guadalupe Fur Seal have been overshadowed by more species declines and concerns over the lion, African Golden Cat, New Zealand Sea Lion populations.

“(The update) confirms that effective conservation can yield outstanding results,” said Inger Andersen, IUCN Director General, in a statement. “Saving the Iberian Lynx from the brink of extinction while securing the livelihoods of local communities is a perfect example.

“But this update is also a wake-up call, reminding us that our natural world is becoming increasingly vulnerable. The international community must urgently step up conservation efforts if we want to secure this fascinating diversity of life that sustains, inspires and amazes us every day.”

Aside from successful conservation efforts in southern Africa, the West African lion subpopulation has been listed as critically endangered due to habitat conversion, a decline in prey caused by unsustainable hunting, and human-lion conflict.

Rapid declines have also been recorded in East Africa – historically a stronghold for lions – mainly due to human-lion conflict and prey decline. Trade in bones and other body parts for traditional medicine, both within the region and in Asia, has been identified as a new, emerging threat to the species.

The Red List provides taxonomic, conservation status and distribution information on plants, fungi and animals; cataloguing and highlighting those plants and animals that are facing a higher risk of global extinction.

It includes 77,340 assessed species, providing a useful snapshot of what is happening to species today and highlighting the urgent need for conservation action. Of the assessed species, 22,784 are threatened with extinction.

According to the update, 99 percent of tropical Asian slipper orchids – some of the most highly prized ornamental plants – are threatened with extinction.

Eighty-five percent of species on the Red List are threatened by the loss and degradation of their habitat, and illegal trade and invasive species are also key drivers of population decline.

“It is encouraging to see several species improve in status due to conservation action,” remarked Jane Smart, Director, IUCN’s Global Species Programme. “However, this update shows that we are still seeing devastating losses in species populations.”

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Africa’s wetland areas are experiencing immense pressure from commercial development and agriculture, settlements, excessive exploitation by local communities and improperly-planned development activities. Credit: Creative Commons CC0

By Tonderayi Mukeredzi
HARARE, Mar 12 2015 (IPS)

African wetlands are among the most biologically diverse ecosystems on the continent, covering more than 131 million hectares, according to the Senegalese-based Wetlands International Africa (WIA).

Yet, despite their importance and value, wetland areas are experiencing immense pressure across the continent. Commercial development ranks as the major threat for the draining of wetlands, including for tourism facilities and agriculture, where hundreds of thousands of hectares of wetlands have been drained.

Other threats to Africa’s wetlands are commercial agriculture, settlements, excessive exploitation by local communities and improperly-planned development activities. The prospect of immense profits from recently discovered oil, coal and gas deposits has also led to an increase in on-and offshore exploration and mining in sensitive ecological areas.Commercial development ranks as the major threat for the draining of [Africa’s] wetlands, including for tourism facilities and agriculture … Other threats are commercial agriculture, settlements, excessive exploitation by local communities and improperly-planned development activities

In Nigeria, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique, for example, wetlands and estuaries coincide with fossil fuel deposits and related infrastructure developments.

In northern Kenya, port developments in Lamu are set to take place in the West Indian Ocean Rim’s most important mangrove area and fisheries breeding ground.

In KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape of South Africa, heavy mineral sands are located in important dune forest ecosystems, and gas is being prospected for in the water-scarce and ecologically unique Karoo.

In East Africa, oil discoveries have been made in the tropical Congo Basin rain forest and the Virunga National Park – a world heritage site and a wetland recognised under the Ramsar Convention.

The Okavango Delta in Botswana, one of Africa’s most important wetlands and designated as the 1,000th world heritage site by UNESCO, has been home to many threatened species and the main water source of regional wildlife in Southern Africa. Yet it is shrinking due to drier climate, increased grazing and growing pressure from tourism.

“This delta is a true oasis in the middle of the bone-dry Kalahari Sand Basin, a rare untouched wilderness that’s been preserved by decades of border and civil wars in the Angolan catchment,” said National Geographic explorer Steve Boyes in an interview. “Many people along the Okavango River live like communities did some 400 years ago – and from them I think we can learn a lot about how to be better stewards of the natural world.”

Boyes calculated the abundance of life in the delta: more than 530 bird species, thousands of plant species, 160 different mammals, 155 reptiles, scores of frogs and countless insects.

“Everywhere you look you find life. We surveyed bats and we found 17 species in three days. We started looking for praying mantises and found 90 different species,” he said.

A recent survey by the Botswana Department of Wildlife and National Parks and the environmentalist group BirdLife Botswana concluded that that the wetland’s historical zones of dense reed beds and water fig islands were largely destroyed by hydrological changes and fire. Bush fires and a high grazing pressure further reduced the natural shores of the Okavango Delta.

Studies by BirdLife Botswana also showed that the slaty egret, a vulnerable water bird living only in Southern Africa, with its main breeding grounds in the wetlands of Zambia, Mozambique and Botswana’s Okavango Delta, is now estimated to have a total population of only about 4,000 birds.

The egret, which is listed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as vulnerable, seems to be losing its main breeding sites in the Okavango.

Environmentalists hope that they can still save the wetland, and pin their hopes on a “Slaty Egret Action Plan” which will be used by the Botswana’s Department of Wildlife and National Parks, BirdLife and other environment stakeholders to guarantee the survival of the Okavango Delta as a safe haven for the birds.

In a further step to save the wetlands, the Botswana government announced this month that from now on, seekers of mobile safari licences would be prohibited from operating in the Okavango Delta because the area in now congested.

The Botswana Guides Association, which represents many of the mobile safaris, is threatening to appeal.

Another example of the devastation of major wetlands occurred in Nigeria with pollution of farmlands linked to the Shell oil company.  The Niger Delta Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration Project, an independent team of scientists from Nigeria, the United Kingdom and the United States, has characterised the Niger Delta as “one of the world’s most severely petroleum-impacted ecosystems.”

In 2013, a Dutch court found the Nigerian subsidiary of Shell culpable for the pollution of farmlands at Ikot Ada Udo in Akwa Ibom state in the coastal south of the country.

The Niger Delta is Africa’s largest delta, covering some 7,000 square kilometres – one-third of which is made up of wetlands. It contains the largest mangrove forest in the world.

Assisted by environmental organisation Friends of the Earth, the court ruling was a victory for the communities in the Niger Delta after years of struggle against the oil company dating back 40 years, although the clean-up still has far to go.

“Destruction of wetlands is prevalent in almost all countries in Africa because the driving factor is the same – population pressure – many mouths to feed, ignorance about the role wetlands in playing in the ecosystem, lack of policies, laws and institutional framework to protect wetlands and in cases where these exist, they are hardly enforced,” John Owino, Programme Officer for Water and Wetlands with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)  told IPS from his base in Nairobi, Kenya.

Owino said that the future of African wetlands lies in stronger political will to protect them, based on sound wetland policies and encouragement for community participation in their management, which is lacking in many African countries.

But very few African governments have specific national policies on wetlands and are influenced by policies from different sectors such as agriculture, national resources and energy.

Edited by Lisa Vives/Phil Harris   

A man stands in front of a giant cut-out of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper, of which only 100 breeding pairs survive. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

By Amantha Perera
JEJU, South Korea, Sep 15 2012 (IPS)

The Red River Giant softshell turtle (Rafetus swinhoei) is the stuff of legend in Vietnam. The fabled turtle in Hanoi’s Hoan Kiem Lake is popularly known by the name Kim Qui or Golden Turtle God, and it made its first historical appearance in 250 BC.

Today this species could indeed use some divine intervention. Experts at the World Conservation Congress here in South Korea’s southern resort island of Jeju warned that there are only four specimens of the famous turtle known to be alive. And only two have any realistic hope of breeding, said Professor Jonathan Baillie, director of conservation at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).

At the Congress, which ended Saturday, the ZSL and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) released a list of the 100 most threatened species in the world and called for concerted action to save those unfortunate enough to make it on to the list, like the Red River Giant turtle.

The report, titled “Priceless or Worthless?”, says that all breeding efforts to produce hatchlings of the Red River Giant have failed since 2008. “We have to get the last ones together to breed,” Baillie put it starkly.

The Red River Giant is probably the most famous species on the list that includes such obscure species as the Liben Lark (Heteromirafra sidamoensis) from Ethiopia, of which less than 300 survive, or the Javan Rhino (Rhinoceros sondaicus), considered the rarest of all living rhinos. A Javan Rhino horn goes for as much as 30,000 dollars on the black market, it is that rare.

Or take the case of the Suicide Palm (Tahina spectabilis), found in northwestern Madagascar. Only discovered in 2007, it is probably a good thing that it can grow so large that individuals can be detected on satellite imagery, as only 90 known individual trees have been located. The tree’s name comes from the fact that it dies exhausted from the effort of producing so many flowers on a stem up to 16 feet long.

The list, which covers 48 countries, was developed by 8,000 scientists from the Species Survival Commission of the IUCN, which organised the 10-day Congress in Jeju.

But Baillie and the other authors fear that the species on the list will be lost because none of them offer any obvious benefit to humans.

Baillie told IPS that despite the global media’s focus on threatened species, half of the most threatened hardly get any attention. “This new report will challenge the way we look at conservation,” he said.

What scientists like Baillie and activists are hoping for is a paradigm shift in the traditional outlook on animal conservation – one that will look not at how useful the species are to humans but rather at whether they have a right to live and avoid extinction due to human exploitation.

But Baillie said he was not confident that the new report, and the renewed lobbying by the conservation community at this year’s IUCN Congress, would change the plight of the listed species.

The IUCN Congress brings together policy-makers and environmentalists every four years.

In 2004, a set of conservation targets were drafted, with a six-year timeframe. In 2010, a fresh set of targets and commitments were inked, as the 2004 targets had not been met. This recent conservation record is the cause of Baillie’s unease.

“I am not overly optimistic. But if the conservation community starts to really put out a strong message, that these species are absolutely essential, that we must value life – this would have much broader implications,” he said.

He also said that if one or two species with no obvious use for humans were allowed to simply disappear without any action taken, it would set a dangerous precedent.

There is no lack of public pronouncements by decision-makers about their commitment to conservation. But the same enthusiasm is not apparent when translating such rhetoric into action on the ground.

“Few politicians will say they don’t value life, (it is) just that we have not followed through with the legislation,” Baillie said.

But other conservation experts told IPS that even legislation did not help when community will to save a species is lacking.

“Very often we can get the legislation in place, but then it is not enforced,” Jane Smart, the director of the IUCN Global Species Programme, told IPS. She said the only thing that changes after laws are passed is that exploitation continues at the same rate, albeit illegally.

There are other conditions as well that can drive species to extinction, which cannot be deterred by simply putting laws in place. IUCN Red List Unit Manager Craig Hilton Taylor told IPS that disease, changing climates or shrinking habitats can all lead to extinction.

“You need to asses what threats are driving the species to extinction before you can decide on the action to be taken,” he said.

So far what is known is daunting in itself: 21 percent of all known mammals, 29 percent of amphibians, 12 percent of birds, 35 percent of conifers and cycads, 17 percent of sharks and 27 percent of reef-building corals are threatened with extinction, according to the IUCN.

But Smart warned that the figures only reflect part of the story. “We know what to do for many species. But there are many, many we don’t know what to do about,” she said.

What the conservation community wants are firm commitments from governments that they will take action on what is known.

“We know what we have to do. What we need is for decision-makers to find the political will to make it happen,” Smart said.

For Baillie, it is a simple question of life and death. “If we value the right to life, then we have to step up to the plate,” he said.

Business is being encouraged to play an increasing role in saving the environment around the world. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS.

By Amantha Perera
JEJU, South Korea, Sep 12 2012 (IPS)

The outcome of the June Rio+20 UN conference on sustainable development was the undisputed inability of governments to come to an agreement on moving ahead to protect the planet. Three months later, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is proposing what can be done as a collective.

“I think we are really moving ahead on the agenda set at Rio with all the agreements that are being reached here,” Julia Marton-Lefèvre, IUCN director-general told IPS. Members at the Congress are exploring ways of turning the Rio agenda into action, she said.

The emphasis at the IUCN congress is on what big businesses can do to help achieve sustainable growth. The Geneva-based World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) is one of the major sponsors of the congress.

It took out a two-page spread in the International Herald Tribune over the weekend of Sep. 8 and 9 to highlight the congress, which is being held from Sep. 6 to 15. Sponsorship for the supplement came from big companies like Hitachi, Holcim and Shell, who are also sponsors of the congress.

Peter Bakker, WBCSD president, told IPS that in the past businesses, big and small, were seen as destroyers of the environment. That line of thinking is slowly changing, Bakker said.

Big companies seem to be taking serious note of the world in which they operate in. “More recently we have begun to understand that the world is reaching its limit in a number of resources,” Bakker said.

Companies and experts at the congress talked of the need for valuing natural capital, or putting a value on a company’s impact on the environment and ecosystems such as water or greenhouse gas emissions. So far they have had zero or limited value placed on them.

Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) told IPS that while world governments stand paralysed and unable to move on conservation, all the money talk at Jeju, the South Korean island where the congress is being held, might at least get them thinking.

“We have to bring a value to nature through economics,” he said. The more people talk of ‘natural capital’, the higher the awareness that products have a hidden natural cost, Steiner said. “Society has to understand there is a price on nature.”

Others have argued that regulations have to be brought in by which accounting standards are changed to look at the impact of a company on nature in the accounting process itself.

At Rio, too, activists had spoken of the need to lobby individual governments and companies to seek unilateral action where bilateral agreements seem impossible.

“If companies move they can inspire, and open the political space for governments to do their job,” James Leape, executive director of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) had told IPS at the conclusion of the Rio summit.

In Jeju, the importance placed on big businesses has gone up a notch; businesses are seen to have replaced governments as the number one instigator of action.

IUCN director-general Marton-Lefèvre defended the status accorded to businesses. “Aren’t businesses a part of society that should be involved in this?”

The building of a cosy relationship has, however, raised eyebrows among some activists.

“We have to be careful about green-washing,” Braulio Ferreira De Souza Dias, general secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) told IPS. But he also sees the close interaction as necessary and inevitable. “After all they are responsible for the unsustainable use of biodiversity. We have to convince them to change the way they do business.”

The CDB head told IPS that the partnership between agencies like the IUCN and private companies was still in its initial stages and evolving into a workable understanding.

He agreed with WWF’s Leape that if big companies begin to act on conservation and sustainable development, it could ease the path for more governmental and intra-governmental action.

“I think many governments are a little shy to integrate development with the environment because of the pressure they receive from the private sector. If we can make more progress in this dialogue with the private sector, hopefully governments will be getting a different message that it is ok to work on these issues.”

Regulations that stand in the way of conservation programmes lower their likely success, experts warned at the World Conservation Congress of the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Jeju, South Korea.

They say there is mounting evidence to show that with participation of communities, businesses and other groups, conservation efforts have shown better results.

“Generally we find that protection efforts are more effective if they involve participation by different stakeholders,” Bastian Bertzky, senior programme officer at the UN Environment Programme and the World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) told IPS.

Bertzky was part of the UNEP-WCMC team that complied the Protected Planet Report 2012 that looks at the state of the world’s protected areas like parks and nature reserves.

The report found that protected areas are growing in number and extent. Around 12.7 percent of the earth’s terrain and inland water areas and around 1.6 percent of the global marine areas are now listed as protected areas, the report revealed.

The report shows that since 1990, protected areas worldwide grew 58 percent in number and 48 percent in extent by 2012.

The report however noted that despite the success, the areas covered fell below the targets agreed by countries party to the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2010. The targets known as the Aichi Biodiversity Targets aimed to have at least 17 percent of the terrain and inland water areas and 10 percent of coastal and marine areas to be demarcated as protected areas.

“Half of the most important sites are unprotected,” Bertzky said.

The UNEP-WCMC expert told IPS that the involvement of stakeholders in managing and preserving natural resources has become popular in the last two decades. “We find that some protected areas are failing to deliver biodiversity benefits because they were set up in a away that excluded the people.”

He cited the large wildlife reserves in Africa which were set up like gigantic fortresses, with fences separating humans from natural resources they had been managing for centuries. These reserves were not delivering the full potential benefits to the people, he said.

Experts working on forest conservation also called for an increase in local control of forests to protect the resources. “Empowering local people to make decisions on commercial forest management and land, with secure tenure rights, the ability to build their own organisations and access to markets and technology can be a highly effective way of raising incomes and protecting forestry resources,” Minni Degawan, project coordinator for KADIOAN, a Filipino indigenous peoples organisation said.

A new report titled Investing in Locally Controlled Forestry, released here at the IUCN congress called for a change in global forest management trends from a resource-based model to one that recognises the rights of the local people.

The Growing Forest Partnership that includes the IUCN and the Forest Dialogue, an initiative by Yale University that works on forest tenure issues, will launch a manual later this month that will advise on how investors and local communities could reach commercial agreements on forest management.

Such guidelines can be handy given the current trend in conservation efforts where private sector involvement is increasingly gaining credence. Kanayo F Nwanze, president of the International Fund for Agriculture told IPS during the June Rio+20 summit that private sector participation was the one critical component in the future success of sustainable development and poverty reduction.

Bertzy echoed similar views. “Wherever there are businesses involved, non-governmental organisations involved, the higher their participation, better the management.”

However effective management of conservation programmes is still lacking despite the increased willingness shown by governments to promote such programmes. The UNEP-WCMC report found that only a third of all protected areas in fact had a valid management plan. Private sector involvement can easily fill the vacuum of lack of efficient management.

However Bharrat Jagdeo, the former President of Guyana, while acknowledging the increasingly essential role private companies played, struck a note of caution. He warned that companies may try to gain undue advantage by linking with nature-friendly programmes and agencies like the IUCN.

Jagdeo proposed that if private sector companies are willing to take part in conservation programmes, there needs to be strict criteria that tests and evaluates their willingness to change and sustain that change.

“There is a need for a litmus test, to test their willingness to engage and change,” he said.

Former South Korean minister for environment Maan-ee Lee suggested that governments should keep a close focus on companies willing to invest in conservation and environment friendly projects. “Governments should look at giving incentives to such companies,” he said. Lee called for a consensus among different governments because “big multi-nationals are going beyond national borders.”

But both spoke of the importance of private sector participation. “We will not find a solution if conservation lies only with governments and groups,”Jagdeo said.

Jeju Island is home to multiple UNESCO World Heritage sites and other environmental and cultural special status designations. Credit: oshokim/CC By 2.0

By Jon Letman
KAUAI, Hawaii, Aug 10 2012 (IPS)

As construction of a hotly contested naval base on South Korea’s Jeju Island advances, there’s a showdown underway.

Korean groups, increasingly aided by sympathetic outsiders, are protesting the base which they say is being built in Gangjeong village under pressure from the United States.

But the latest battle isn’t between base protestors and Korea’s military or police, it’s between the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and those opposing its upcoming Sep. 6-15 World Conservation Congress (WCC) at Jungmon resort, seven km from Gangjeong.

Jeju, home to multiple UNESCO World Heritage sites and numerous other environmental and cultural special status designations (see side bar), is taking on new strategic importance as regional military powers and the United States, which maintains dozens of military bases in South Korea, Japan and Okinawa, vie for dominance in northeast Asia.

The naval base at Gangjeong, which Seoul said will also have civilian uses, is expected to accommodate submarines and up to 20 warships, including U.S. Aegis-equipped destroyers which opponents say will make the island less safe, not more.

For five years, Gangjeong has been the site of daily protests and frequent arrests. Now, just weeks before the Congress is to begin, conservationists, academics and NGOs are challenging the IUCN.

In mid-July 55 Korean environmental and civic groups sent a memo to the IUCN asking it to clarify its position on at least half a dozen environmental issues including the naval base while strongly criticising the decision to hold the Congress on Jeju.

A second group, Jeju Emergency Action Committee, submitted an open letter to the IUCN calling for the postponement or relocation of the Congress unless base construction is halted.

One of the authors of that letter is Jerry Mander, founder and co-chair of the International Forum on Globalization. He said the South Korean government’s support for the base, next door to the event, defies the IUCN’s historical purpose. He contends the IUCN is being “nice” about the base just to act like “grateful guests”.

“I think the IUCN’s willingness to praise its financial sponsors while, next door, the sponsors undermine the entire purpose of the IUCN is unforgivable,” Mander told IPS.

The IUCN has confirmed that Samsung C&T and Hyundai are among sponsors helping the South Korean government offset the cost of hosting the Congress. Critics are quick to note that Samsung is the lead contractor at the base and Hyundai Heavy Industries is working with Lockheed Martin to produce the Aegis Combat System to be deployed on U.S. warships at the Jeju naval base.

Opponents say holding the WCC so close to the site of the disputed development and its associated protests, arrests and a police crackdown on groups fighting to protect the environment is in direct conflict with the IUCN’s stated aim to “improve how we manage our natural environment for human, social and economic development”.

In a written statement responding to criticism, IUCN director general Julia Marton-Lefèvre said: “Unfortunately, no country has a totally unblemished record on the environment…The Jeju Congress will bring together thousands of dedicated conservations from all over the world to debate, discuss, share and vote on our most pressing environmental problems and their solutions.”

In an interview on Korean television, Marton-Lefèvre explained that IUCN’s vision is “a just world that values and conserves nature” with a mission to “influence society based on good science to conserve nature and natural resources in an equitable and sustainable manner”.

Speaking to IPS from Switzerland, IUCN director of communications John Kidd said, “IUCN is not a campaigning organisation like Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth. We’re a membership organisation that exists to promote scientific research and facts and to bring different groups in society together.”

Kidd said it’s important that the WCC, which is held every four years, remains on Jeju.

“We want (the base) issue, with all the people involved, to be discussed at the Congress…in a very open, pragmatic, structured way.” To postpone or relocate the Congress, Kidd said, would not be good for people affected by the Gangjeong base or other environmental issues in Korea.

“Part of the benefit of the Congress is that (as) a movement to be more sustainable and environmentally conscious, (it) spills over to the place where the Congress is held. We’ve seen that going back decades,” Kidd said.

With between 8,000-10,000 attendees (about half from IUCN member organisations) at the quadrennial gathering, Kidd said the Congress provides an important venue to discuss the Gangjeong base and other issues.

“We’re very confident there will be a proper, open dialogue between the two main parties at the Congress (South Korean government and NGOs, specifically the Gangjeong village association) regarding the base.”

Kidd continues, “We’d like people to learn the background to these issues… and to look at both sides and the facts behind the issues, versus the politics…. We hope that delegates will go visit the site of the naval base…We’d like people to look at these also in view of similar issues in their own countries and regions.”

Sung-Hee Choi, who has been actively protesting in Gangjeong since 2009, told IPS she also wants IUCN members to see the culture and environment whose existence she said is threatened by the base.

Choi, who was photographed lying on the ground to block a bulldozer with her own body, argues Jeju is not only ecologically and culturally sensitive, but filled with spiritually important sites.

Another protestor, Jung-Min Choi from Seoul, has been arrested three times in Gangjeong. She told IPS that even if the IUCN doesn’t postpone its meeting, she wants it to include a statement about the impact of the base in its final resolution.

The theme for this year’s World Conservation Congress is ‘Nature+’ which the IUCN said is “about boosting the resilience of nature – improving how quickly nature and people adapt to change”.

As construction of the naval base in Gangjeong continues to alter the human and natural landscape of Jeju, many fear nature’s resilience is no match for the military and they’re pleading for help.