Wildlife protection agency puts Kenya on notice over poaching
A Kenya Wildlife Service ranger guards an ivory haul, which was seized at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. Global conservationists have asked Kenya to put in place tough measures to tame poaching. AFP
Kenya is among the eight countries that world governments have given an ultimatum to come up with a tight formula on how to rein in illegal trade in ivory, rhino horn, species of sharks and timber in two months.
A meeting under the auspices of Cites that ended last Thursday resolved to take action against Kenya, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Uganda, Tanzania and Vietnam — the countries believed to have failed to clamp down on large-scale illegal ivory trade — if they show little or no progress in fighting the crime.
However, a group of 10 campaigners has accused the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) of lacking the cure for elephant poaching.
After two weeks of talks in Bangkok, Thailand, for the first time, the Cites meeting told countries most implicated in illicit ivory trade to tame smuggling.
“After years of inaction, governments today put those countries failing to regulate the ivory trade on watch, a move that will help stem the unfettered slaughter of thousands of African elephants,” said Carlos Drews, World Wildlife Fund’s head of delegation at Cites.
Failure of countries on the watchlist to take action could lead to sanctions. The treaty allows Cites to recommend that governments taking part in the treaty stop trading with non-compliant countries in the 35,000 species covered under the convention, from orchids to crocodile skins.
“These countries will now be held accountable to these pledges, and must step up the urgency in dealing with the global poaching crisis that is ravaging our wildlife,” Mr Drews said.
John E. Scanlon, the Cites secretary-general, said that the proposals were a major victory for wildlife and environment watchdogs by the international groups that “decided to make best use of this pragmatic and effective agreement to help it along the path to sustainability in our oceans and forests”.
But the campaigners, among them Kenya’s Youth for Conservation, Elephant Advocacy League of the US, International Ranger Federation of Australia, Robin des Bois of France and Germany’s Pro Wildlife said the “only way to save the world’s elephants is an immediate, comprehensive, and indefinite ban on international and domestic ivory trade”.
The organisations challenged Cites to deal with the growing demand for ivory in Asia.
“Just as the legal trade in cigarettes, medicines and weapons has not stopped them being smuggled, the legal trade in ivory has not stopped the slaughter of elephants and smuggling of the ivory,” said Charlotte Nithart, director of Robin des Bois.
Wildlife Direct chief executive Paula Kahumbu said that Cites ought to address the thriving demand for ivory in Asia, especially China. She said that until the sanction threats are directed to the right target, “there is nothing to celebrate”.
Dr Kahumbu, however, said the tough stand against the eight countries could push Kenya to wake up, implement a wildlife policy, and stop withholding information on the elephant poaching and sale of ivory.
“The scale of ivory trade has reached alarming levels,” she told the Business Daily immediately the Cites issued the statement.
Kenya has the capacity to meet the two-month deadline of coming up with an acceptable plan on how to deal with the poaching menace, she said. The country needs a regime of heavy penalties, specialised prosecutors, increased training, better investigation, dispense with court cases fast, and “go for the people organising poaching, not just the poachers”.
Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, when opening the meeting, announced she would shut down her country’s ivory markets. She was apparently reacting to a strong statement in the form of 1.5 million signatures on the petitions by WWF and other organisations asking her to deal with trading of ivory in Thailand.
On the growing threat to rhinos, the Bangkok meeting pledged to work against criminals by increasing penalties and reduce demand for illegal wildlife products like rhino horn, which is believed to be a miracle cure in Vietnam.
Based on the claims that the rhino is a cure in some regions across the world, the price has been rising sharply, giving organised crime gangs the impetus to step up, threatening the member of the Big Five.
About 700 South African rhinos were killed by poachers last year, and nearly 150 have died this year, says the WWF in a statement posted on its website. Up to 30,000 elephants are lost to poaching every year, the Fund said.
“Evidence is irrefutable that China bears the main responsibility for the elephant poaching crisis yet it continues to hide behind a façade of denial,” said Youth for Conservation director Steve Itela in a statement released from Bangkok.
Although unconfirmed reports said “all of Kenya’s proposals at the Cites event were rejected,” the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said on its website that its action to fight elephant poaching got the backing of Cites.
Kenya together with Burkina Faso, Togo and Mali had proposed that elephant range states do not present a proposal to trade in ivory until a nine-year moratorium agreed upon at the 14th meeting of the Conference of the Parties in 2007 at the Hague ends in 2017.
The wildlife custodian said Kenya’s proposals were incorporated into decisions and resolutions adopted for implementation “of concrete measures to help reduce demand for ivory and combat elephant poaching”.
For the first time, KWS said, Kenya successfully lobbied to have sandalwood species listed on Appendix II some of the species. This is a list of species that are not necessarily now threatened with extinction but may become so unless trade is closely controlled.
