Elephants Remain a Hot Topic for CITES
Last week the 61st meeting of the CITES Standing Committee took place in Geneva, Switzerland, and once again the discussions on elephant conservation remained the most controversial. CITES – or the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora to give it its full name – was established in the 1970s to oversee international trade in wildlife and wildlife products, and to ensure that the survival of wild animals and plants is not threatened as a result. As such, when it became clear that the trade in ivory was decimating African elephants in the 70s and 80s, CITES members intervened with a number of measures, ultimately banning the international trade in ivory in 1989. The debate has raged ever since between those who believe that any trade in ivory encourages poaching for more, versus those who believe that some ivory (for example from confiscations and elephants that have died naturally) should be traded for the high returns that it attracts. Courting further controversy, the Standing Committee last week voted to have a closed session on elephant issues – barring conservation organisations and other observers from the conference hall – in a move that caused widespread shock and dismay. Fortunately the decision was reversed a few hours later, and the session was reopened to those that have invested such considerable resources and expertise in the issue over the years.
Prior to the meeting, Elephant Family had released The Ivory Dynasty: A Report on the Soaring Demand for Elephant and Mammoth Ivory in Southern China, by Esmond Martin and Lucy Vigne, following their research that it had funded with The Aspinall Foundation and Columbus Zoo. The Environmental Investigation Agency meanwhile released their findings on the scale of illegal ivory available in China, with the two sets of findings complementing each other and shedding some much needed light on the problem. There was some suggestion that the release of these reports may have contributed to the request from Kuwait – representing Asia – to have the closed session; the need for discussion of documents of a sensitive nature was the cited reason. Whatever the case, the Chinese delegation allegedly used the opportunity of the closed session to attack the two sets of findings, arguing that they contradicted each other.
However, outside the conference, Wan Ziming of Beijing’s CITES office later said that he had no real problems with The Ivory Dynasty report, and appreciated the information that it provided. He gave assurances that he would personally follow up the report’s recommendations and that China would do all they can to enforce their laws. We hope they stay true to their word. The Ivory Dynasty report was widely welcomed at the meeting for providing detailed information on the scale of the problem, and will be used to help fight the trade in illegal ivory, whether this is ultimately by the Chinese government or NGOs.
In the meantime, the subsequent reversal of the decision to have a closed session on elephants will have helped to restore the credibility of CITES, whose openness and transparency was otherwise being called into question, amid fears that the move could have set a dangerous precedent when it came to the discussion of other issues.
In the end, a working group was established to review the CITES resolution on trade in elephant specimens; the Standing Committee agreed to a proposal for work towards developing a decision-making mechanism for authorising ivory trade; and Thailand was requested to submit a written report at the next Standing Committee meeting on their progress in combating the illegal trade in ivory and regulating their internal trade. There was some debate as to whether there should be a separate CITES subgroup to deal specifically with elephant issues, as proposed by the UK. It was questioned how that could sufficiently reflect everyone’s concerns, as well as to how it could be established without becoming too cumbersome, and the proposal as it stood was therefore not approved. The debate highlighted the importance of the African Elephant Action Plan that was conceived under the aegis of CITES and finalised last year, and recognised the need for an Asian Elephant Action Plan, something that was also recognised in the “New Delhi E-8 Recommendation” earlier this year. The Indian delegation therefore encouraged the Asian elephant range states to develop such a plan, and took the first steps towards this. Elephant Family welcomes and supports such an important development for Asian elephant conservation that came from last week's meeting.
written by Dan Bucknell on 23rd August 11
