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Kenya's Bid to Save the Elephants |
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By Katy Salmon*
The fate of this land giant will be defined at a global meeting next month in Chile, where five African nations are expected to press for a lift on the ivory trade ban. Kenya says that lifting the ban would encourage poaching.
NAIROBI - Kenya is lobbying to block a proposal that five of its Southern African neighbors are taking to the global meeting in Chile next month: to ease the ban on international ivory trading.
Promoted by South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe, the initiative would represent danger for all elephant populations existing in the world, argues Kenya, a warning that has the backing of environmentalists and experts.
The five nations want to sell off their government-owned stockpiles of raw ivory and obtain quotas to allow limited legal trade in the material. The revenues of the ivory-based commerce would be invested back into the conservation of the region's elephants.
But Kenya argues that legalizing ivory trade would trigger a resurgence of poaching and illegal ivory trading. Kenya lost 80 percent of its elephants in the 1980s, when commerce was still legal.
"The proposal would put elephants in 50 countries at risk. Trafficking of ivory is already increasing and legal trade will only provide a cover for illicit deals," warns Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).
The matter will be taken up in the Chilean capital Nov 3-15 when representatives from 160 countries are to gather for a meeting of the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES).
The success of the current ban on ivory trading, introduced by CITES in 1989, is indisputable. Prices have collapsed and the steep decline of Africa's elephant population has been shored up.
Over the last decade, the major ivory markets in the East Asia have fallen by 90 percent, says Edmond Martin, author of "The Ivory Markets of Asia".
But even with the ban in place, "in most of Africa, the illegal killing of elephants is continuing," says Patrick Omondi, elephant program coordinator for KWS.
According to the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), more than a thousand of these land giants have been killed in the last year worldwide.
Many African countries do not have the funds, personnel, equipment or legislation to safeguard their elephants. "There is civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They have no mechanisms to control poachers," explains Omondi.
Nearby Somalia and Sudan, are also at war. "We have illegal firearms trickling in. In Somalia, there s no government even to dialogue with," says Omondi.
Kenya, whose elephants are spread across the country and not confined to parks like in South Africa, has lost 81 elephants to poachers so far this year, up from 57 in 2001.
The penalty for being caught with ivory is 64 dollars, much too low to be a deterrent.
"Despite our air patrols we still have poachers coming in. If there were a legal market, we fear this would escalate," says Omondi. In September, Chinese authorities seized three tons of illegal ivory that had originated in Kenya.
Environmental officials in Nairobi argue that the partial reopening of trade in 1999, when CITES allowed Southern Africa to make a one-off ivory sale to Japan, illustrates the danger of legalizing the ivory trade.
"That experiment was a big mistake," says Omondi. "Trade was quiet from 1990. Then all of a sudden poaching shot up."
Ivory expert and author Martin agrees. "This new legal supply gave optimism to Japan's ivory industry that some time in the future more supplies could be made available. Without the stocks, more people would have gone out of the ivory business," he says.
"It is premature" to suggest an easing of the ivory ban, says KWS director Joseph Kioko. "Many African countries do not have the mechanisms to know the impact this (limited) trade will have on their population."
Kenya argues, with the support of India, that the Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) system -- agreed in 1997 -- needs time to produce baseline data against which future changes can be monitored. The system is just starting in Africa and has not yet been set up in many Asian countries.
"Let's have this monitoring system in place, let it gather enough data on illegal killings across the African continent so that an experiment (in stockpile sales) can be started in maybe 10 years," Omondi suggests.
Kenya is calling for the elephant to be returned to Appendix I of CITES, which stipulates that no trade is allowed, at least until MIKE is in place.
The elephants of Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa have been downgraded to Appendix II, in other words, they are considered less threatened. This split-listing of elephants, says Kenya, is sending the wrong signal to poachers.
"Ivory is ivory to a poacher," states Omondi.
The future of the world's elephants is one of the hot issues on the agenda for the CITES meeting, where another 50 proposals are up for a vote, including Japan's controversial proposal to lift the ban on hunting minke and bryde whales.
* Katy Salmon is an IPS correspondent.
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