Conservationists scored a rare victory at a UN wildlife meeting on Monday when governments voted to reject contentious proposals by Tanzania and Zambia to weaken the 21-year-old ban on ivory sales over concerns it would further contribute to poaching.
The heated debate over the proposed sale of the two countries’ ivory stocks divided Africa, as it has in years past, at the 175-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
Nearly two dozen central and east African countries came out against the proposals on the grounds that they would hurt already declining African elephant populations. Southern African countries, in contrast, argued the two nations should be rewarded for the conservation efforts undertaken and should have the right to manage their herds as they see fit.
“People born in 100 years, they should be able to see an elephant,” said Kenyan Minister of Forestry and Wildlife Noah Wekesa, whose country opposed the sales. “We should not lose this heritage that we have. We have a duty to make sure we increase the numbers of elephants.”
The ivory stocks the two nations wanted to sell come from natural deaths or controlled culling of problem animals.
Key to the defeat of the two proposals were concerns among many delegates and environmentalists that the sales would further exacerbate a poaching problem that some say is at its highest levels since the 1989 ivory ban.
Environmentalists welcomed the decision, which came on the same day that countries agreed on a conservation plan for African and Asian rhinos. Delegates agreed to step up enforcement against rhino poaching and work to slow the demand in Asia.
Until the rhino and elephant votes, environmentalists had achieved little at CITES. A proposal to ban the export of Atlantic bluefin tuna was defeated, along with a plan to regulate the coral trade and conserve sharks.
“After the way the week went for marine species, today’s decisions were much more positive, particularly the decision on rhinos, which was really a boost for conservation and morale,” said Carlos Drew, head of the World Widelife Fund delegation.
On the elephant proposals, Tanzania was asking to sell almost 90,000kg of ivory that would have generated as much as US$20 million. It said in its proposal that its elephant population has risen from about 55,000 in 1989 to almost 137,000, a 2007 study showed.
Zambia wanted to sell 21,700kg of ivory and bring in between US$4 million and US$8 million. It withdrew a request for the ivory sale and offered a compromise to allow a regulated trade in elephant parts, excluding ivory — a first step toward future tusk sales.
The two countries argued that their elephant populations had reached the point where they were trampling crops and killing too many people. They also said preventing them from selling the stocks would increase anger toward the beasts, which are seen as pests by affected communities.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
RSS