Cites CoP18: Two camps differ on measures to curb trafficking in African elephant ivory

In what could be billed as the fight for the African elephant, two camps are pulling in different directions over the fate of the continent’s foremost pachyderm.

One camp, led by Kenya and made up of Benin, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Niger and Togo, wants tighter controls to curb illicit killing of the mammal for tusks while the other — comprised of Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia – wants looser restrictions.

Countries are expected to submit their proposals to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) for consideration at the 18th meeting of Conference of Parties (CoP18) in Colombo, Sri Lanka from May 23 to June.

The Kenyan group proposes the transfer of Southern Africa elephants from appendix II to appendix I of Cites. This would make any future “one-off” ivory sales by the Southern Africa nations extremely difficult.

Appendix I, of species threatened with extinction allows trade in exceptional circumstances.

Appendix II includes species not threatened with extinction and trade has strict regulation to avoid utilisation incompatible with survival.

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Appendix III is for species that any country identifies as being subject to regulation within its jurisdiction to prevent or restrict exploitation and it requires the co-operation of other countries to control international trade.

To counter this call, Zambia is proposing its elephant population be moved from appendix I to II to allow future sales of government-owned ivory stockpiles.

It wants to use ivory sales money for community projects and conservation. Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa want to sell off stockpiles of raw ivory.

Zimbabwe dismisses the Kenya-led proposal to move its elephants to appendix I as lacking justification for placing healthy populations in Zimbabwe with other range states of Southern Africa in the same category as populations in West, Central and East Africa.

“African elephant conservation will benefit from appreciating that contexts are different with different measures applied in different states at various scales. Appendix I is not a panacea for threat reduction,’’ said Zimbabwe.

African range countries in 2010 agreed on the African Elephant Action Plan to tackle poaching while also targeting transit countries and markets like China.

Trade

The Southern Africa countries propose trade in hides, trade in hair and trade in leather goods for commercial or non-commercial purposes for Botswana, Namibia and South Africa and for non-commercial purposes for Zimbabwe.

The region is also calling for trade in individually marked and certified ivory incorporated in finished jewellery for non-commercial purposes for Namibia and ivory carvings for non-commercial purposes for Zimbabwe.

The countries also want trade in registered raw ivory (for Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, whole tusks and pieces) subject to only registered government-owned stocks excluding seized ivory and tusks of unknown origin.

1990 ban

International trade in elephant ivory was banned in 1990. Britain, China and the US have today banned ivory sales.

Hong Kong in 2014 promised to phase out the elephant tusks trade by 2021. Thailand, Laos and Vietnam are big ivory markets. Europe is the biggest exporter of legal ivory.

Environmental lobby WildAid chief executive Peter Knights said relaxing of ivory trade restrictions could lead to a massive increase in the killing of elephants as past Cites one-off sales have failed to stem the demand for tusks.

Cites allowed Japan and China in 1999 and 2008 respectively, to buy tusks in experimental sales that enabled traffickers to ply their trade because of the difficulty of distinguishing legal ivory from the one poached.

In other proposals, Namibia wants Cites to transfer its rhino population from appendix I to II to allow trade only in live animals and hunting trophies. Eswatini has proposal for international trade in rhino horns for commercial purposes.

It is estimated that 20,000 southern white rhino in Africa remain threatened by poaching for horns. Poaching has escalated enormously in recent years in South Africa which is home to around 90 per cent of the southern white rhino population.

It is estimated Namibia currently has 1,946 rhinos. Poaching of black rhinos and white rhinos in Namibia jumped from zero in 2006 to 30 in 2014 and tripled to 90 one year later. The majority of rhinos poached in Namibia between 2014 and 2016 were black rhinos.

“The geographical shift in poaching to Namibia over the past two years is worrying,” said the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Woolly mammoth

Meanwhile, Israel wants to list on appendix II the woolly mammoth, which was roughly the same size as modern African elephant. Woolly mammoth went extinct about 11,700 years ago.

It will be the first time an extinct species is listed as protected under Cites.

Israel’s move is in response to the growing trade in mammoth ivory which is popular as a legal alternative to elephant tusks in carvings. To get around the elephant ivory ban, traders sometimes mix the two ivories.

“They are often intermingled in shipment and retail displays. To the untrained eye it is difficult to distinguish between them,” said global animals conservation lobby Humane Society International’s senior specialist for wildlife programme and policy Iris Ho.

Currently there is no international regulatory regime to track and monitor commercial trade in mammoth ivory.

Fifty-seven proposals to amend species lists have been submitted by 90 countries for consideration at the CoP18.

Cites has received 140 documents that propose new measures with policies on international trade in wild fauna and flora.

The CoP18 agenda includes global trade in timber, white rhino, saiga antelope and giraffe. It could affect the protection status of 18 fish species, birds, 51 reptiles, 17 mammals, 457 amphibians, 20 invertebrates and 407 plants.

Proposals on reptiles include four from the meeting’s host country alongside US, that want the tiger spiders native to Sri Lanka and India listed.

“Decisions taken at CoP18 will alter conservation and international trade management, have direct impacts on biodiversity, livelihoods of rural communities and national economies,” said Cites secretary general Ivonne Higuero.

Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal are proposing to transfer the black-crowned crane bird from appendix II to I, to prohibit international trade in the species. Black-crowned crane has been on appendix II since 1985.

“The justification for classification is due to habitat loss and trapping for domestication or illegal international trade,” said submission documents to Cites prepared by the three countries.

Black crowned cranes are legally protected in Africa but some countries lack resources to control illegal hunters.

Malawi wants its national tree the widdringtonia whytei or Mulanje cedar listed on appendix II. The tree is a decay- and termite-resistant species.

Parties have until mid-March to submit their proposals.

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Thirteen elephants handed over to conservation centre by Laos govt

XAYABOURY, Laos (Vientiane Times/ANN) - Thirteen elephants handed over to Elephant Conservation Centre by Lao government.

In a scene straight of out an Indiana Jones movie, 13 elephants walked across the Nam Pouy National Park and arrived at their new home at the Elephant Conservation Centre (ECC) in Xayaboury province on February 19, 2018.

This impressive caravan had travelled about 150 kilometres, all the way from Thongmixay district where they had been stationed for several months following a decision by Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith to stop their illegal export to a foreign country.

The Lao government has recently taken steps to reverse illegal wildlife trafficking and environmental crimes with tightened laws on log exports and a new national law on wildlife trafficking due to come into effect.

A tangible indication of this reform came this month with this gifting of elephants to the Elephant Conservation Centre in Xayaboury province, after all options were carefully assessed by teams from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry for their relocation.

The ECC, well-known globally for its socially responsible care of retired, orphaned and injured domestic elephants, has been seeking to expand its facilities to enable a semi-wild environment in keeping with international practice.

With this ‘caravan of hope’, 13 Lao elephants are now free thanks to a brave decision by central and Xayaboury provincial authorities.

Aged 5 to 47 years, elephants from this group will now enjoy a life amongst the existing 12-strong herd at the ECC and hopefully contribute to the regeneration of the declining elephant population of Laos through the ongoing breeding programme undertaken by the ECC team of biologists and veterinarians.

As they left Thongmixay district in Xayaboury province, the elephants’ mahouts (elephant handlers), the Deputy Director of the provincial Agriculture and Forestry Department Mr Khamkeuang Phanlak and staff from the ECC walked for four days across the Nam Pouy National Park, an area where an estimated population of 50-70 wild elephants still exists.

As they exited the forest, they stopped in Pakxong village where they made a donation to the local elementary school, according to a report from the centre.

Representatives of Xayaboury provincial authorities present at the handover ceremony included provincial Deputy Governors Mrs Bounphak Inthapanya and Mr Phengnilan Khamphanpheng, the provincial Environment and Natural Resources Department Director Mr Somkhit Inthavong, and local provincial and district authorities.

Representatives of the Elephant Conservation Centre, Mr Inthy Deuansavanh, Mr Sébastien Duffillot and Mr Jean-François Reumaux signed the official handover agreement.

ECC occupies 530 hectares of forest land set on the shores of the breathtaking Nam Tien Lake in Xayaboury district, only two hours from the World Heritage town of Luang Prabang.

Xayaboury is home to 75 percent of the country’s elephant population and has been dubbed ‘The Lao Elephant Homeland’ for its historical connection with the pachyderms.

With 30 elephants, a team of 53 Lao and international staff and the only elephant hospital in the country, ECC now takes care of the largest elephant herd under human care in Laos and is currently working on the conservation of the wild elephant population of Nam Pouy National Park together with Xayaboury province authorities.

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Elephants still at risk with Laos replacing China as ivory market

An elephant is lifted by a crane in an upside down position during a relocation exercise from Chemeron Farm in Rongai, Nakuru County to Aberdare National Park, on September, 28, 2017. The African elephant is still under threat as a new market for ivory emerges in Laos on the border of Thailand.

In Summary

Poaching to satisfy demand for ivory by Asian markets has seen the worst declines in Africa’s overall elephant population in the past 10 years.

In 1979, when 1.2 million elephants roamed Africa, Kenya had 167,000, says the Kenya Wildlife Service. Today, the total elephant population in Kenya is estimated at 38,000.

The conservationists said the world needed to put pressure on the Laos Government and other countries around china, such as Burma and Vietnam, to act on the burgeoning trade, if efforts to conserve the African elephant are going to work.

It was something of a triumph when China announced earlier this year that it was going to enforce a ban on domestic ivory trade.

However, a conservation group that has been studying the situation now says the African elephant is still under threat as the trade shifts to Laos.

Conservationists working under the umbrella of Save the Elephants Foundation said Thursday that as ivory shops and carving factories closed shop in China following the State-sanctioned ban, more were popping up in the tourist markets northwest of Laos on the border of Thailand close to Burma and China.

The ivory researchers who have been trailing the trade in ivory around the world for decades say the Chinese have moved their trade across the border to maintain demand with a long cultural heritage in China, making the southeast Asian country the fastest growing market in the world.

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Elephants In Laos Rapidly Disappearing

Elephants In Laos Rapidly Disappearing

DENIS D. GRAY, The Associated Press

March 21, 2008

VIENTIANE, Laos - Connie Speight has swayed on elephant-back through unforgiving jungle and has adopted nine of the high-maintenance beasts. At 83, the retired American teacher is back in this Southeast Asian country to help save what remains of the once mighty herds.

Once so famous for its herds that it was called Prathet Lane Xane, or Land of a Million Elephants, Laos is thought to have only 700 left in the wild.

"Lots of people in Asia tell you how elephants are their proud national heritage," Speight said. "But I tell them, 'It was your heritage, and what are you doing to bring it back?' Often precious little."

Elephants in Laos are better off than in most of the 12 other nations that are home to the animals. The country has extensive forest cover and a sparse population. But like elsewhere, it's a race against time. Poachers, dam builders, loggers and farmers are taking a deadly toll on the endangered species.

"The situation will become very dramatic in about 10 years if nothing changes," said Sebastien Duffillot, co-founder of France-based ElefantAsia. At their current rate of decline, Laos' wild elephants could be extinct within 50 years, he warns.

To read the full story click on the blog title

Laos losing its iconic elephant. Birth rates are plunging due to lost habitat and gruelling work. Can eco-tourism help?

FRANK ZELLER, Agence France-Presse

MArch 14, 2007

HONGSA, LAOS -- The elephant population of Laos is shrinking fast, a decline ecologists blame on habitat loss and a trend all too familiar to many humans -- too much work, not enough play.

Ancient Laos was known as Lan Xang, the "Land of One Million Elephants" but today fewer than 2,000 of the animals survive and about half of them are driving the problem by helping log the country's last virgin forests.

Birth rates have plummeted as wild populations have been isolated and domesticated elephants often spend eight hours a day in remote logging camps, leaving them exhausted and far from potential mates.

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Environmentalists in the poor Southeast Asian country are trying to reverse the trend before it is too late, pinning their hopes on eco-tourism and revitalizing the elephant's ancient sacred role in Lao culture.

To raise awareness about the plight of the majestic animals, France-based non-profit group ElefantAsia last month organized modern Laos' first elephant festival in the remote northwestern district of Hongsa. The event featured colourful elephant parades, skills demonstrations and religious rituals in which Buddhist monks performed rites for the pachyderms traditionally honoured for their strength, spirit and intelligence.