Africa is home to a vast array of CITES-listed species and South Africa is globally recognised for ‘the Big Five’. At the conference, parties will evaluate the progress made since 2013, and take decisions on what additional measures are needed to end illicit wildlife trafficking. They will also consider a number of proposals to bring additional species under CITES trade controls, among other things.

Rhino poaching will feature on the agenda of CoP17, tying in with the logo of the conference, an iconic image of the African white rhinoceros. The rhino’s body comprises the outlines of a number of species of endangered plants and animals from the African continent, such as the pangolin, cycad, African aloe and African lion. The rhino was chosen given South Africa’s status as home to the largest rhino populations in the world and to draw attention to the challenges of poaching.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora is an international agreement between governments. Its aim is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival.

Annually, international wildlife trade is estimated to be worth billions of dollars and to include hundreds of millions of plant and animal specimens. The trade is diverse, ranging from live animals and plants to a vast array of wildlife products derived from them, including food products, exotic leather goods, wooden musical instruments, timber, tourist curios and medicines. Levels of exploitation of some animal and plant species are high and the trade in them, together with other factors, such as habitat loss, is capable of heavily depleting their populations and even bringing some species close to extinction. Many wildlife species in trade are not endangered, but the existence of an agreement to ensure the sustainability of the trade is important in order to safeguard these resources for the future.

Read more about OIPA International Campaign against Ivory Trade, CLICK HERE

L'articolo THE CITES (COP17) CONFERENCE WILL BE RUNNING FROM SEPTEMBER 24TH TO OCTOBER 5TH proviene da OIPA.

This escalation is mainly due to the request of rhino horn from Asian countries, especially China and Vietnam. This demand is historically linked to the use of the horn in traditional medicine in these countries.

However, in recent years it seems that an another aspect threatens the life of these mammals. In fact own the rhino horn has become a status symbol of the emerging social classes. This drives up the value of the horn on the black market and pushes the poachers to ruthless actions. They plan the capture and killing of specimens actions by adopting high-technology tools and transforming hunting in guerrilla operations. The data of the International Ranger Federation indicate that at least 96 people were killed last year during anti poaching operations.

To counter the extinction of the five remaining species, some breeding were introduced in Europe: 78 zoological park it has reached nearly 300 specimens.

This day reminds us that much more remains to be done to protect these wonderful wild animals.

Read more about OIPA International Campaign Against Ivory Trade, CLICK HERE

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The current poaching and trafficking crisis is the second to which elephants are subjected: the first one (1970s-1980s) almost exterminates the Loxodonta Africana, with nearly 100.000 specimen killed every year for their tusks. It was this quasi-extinction that lead the International Community to impose a ban on the ivory trade. This prohibition was an immense victory, that rapidly reduced the price of the ivory and drop the legal supplier and retailer out of the market. Through the last decade of the XX century, the ivory trade was quite completely in the hands of the Governments; anyway illegal ivory demand did not disappear completely, and met the fully criminalized trade, which slowly consolidate itself, until the beginning of the new millennium, when was strongly able to answer the growing ivory demand form the East Asian market: in the period 1998-2011, the size of the global illegal ivory activities tripled.

East Asia has always been an important destination market for ivory, even though the accurate demand is too difficult to be measured.
It is possible to divide up the ivory trade chain according to the part of the world considered: African States are the beginning of the trade, where the poachers, that slay the animals and rip out their tusks or horns. From Sudan come the most violent poachers, trained by the wars which have teared the country. The Sudanese poachers drive the white rhinos of the North to the extinction during the first poaching crisis. In the DRC, where war caused lawlessness, the elephant population has been affected, and passes from more than 100.000 specimens to less than 5.000, anyway poaching continues and is due particularly by the Congolese military. Mozambique experienced a tragic decline of the elephant population, while its rhinos are completely extinct. In Kenya, the escalating poaching is due to domestic corruption, organized crime, and local poverty: Kenyan poachers are better equipped and better informed. Even Zimbabwe, that at the moment registers low level of poaching, in short time will experience a growth, because of its proximity to areas affected.

In this part of the chain there are: the poacher, who physically kill the animals; the “financier”, who never came in contact with the ivory, but has a political and social role. Among his tasks, he provides the poachers with the correct information about where to hunt, who are the corruptible officers, and corrupts the judiciary and law enforcement agencies; the “consolidator” receives and packages the cargo, which will be later loaded on the ships intended to Asia. “Consignors and consignees” are those who signs to register the cargo in their name to cover up the real owners.

In the last period, regional dynamics have been changed: Southern Africa is reducing the seizure of ivory-related activities (poaching, exporting…) while Eastern Africa and South-East Asia’s seizure are growing bigger and bigger.

The major transport axis for illicit ivory is obviously by the sea, through the Indian Ocean, where one-three tons of ivory are mixed to other products which are to be exported, usually fish or garlic to hide the smell of decomposing ivory. Other traders rely completely on the links they have at the port.

Airborne flows have a less volume of trafficked ivory: most of the ivory confiscated in airports do not reach the weight of 10 kg, usually transported in personal luggage of small-scale traffickers: tourists and migrant workers. In those cases, credible judicial actions can work as a deterrent, an effect that is not possible to obtain with real traffickers. In this context, is important to underline the role of Asian diplomats, who abuses their diplomatic immunities in order to traffic and import ivory, diamonds and other high value commodities, and are really impossible to be identified.

Once in Asia, starts the second part of the chain: in this part of the world, ivory has different meanings, as religious symbol, status symbol and even traditional medicine.

Thailand is the world’s second largest ivory market, and it is growing fast. Vietnam is the fulcrum of the rhino horn trade and a hotspot for the ivory trade in Asia, both as a transit and as a consumer country. Myanmar, which shares a long border with China, shows sign of increasing illegal ivory-related activities. Cambodia has long borders in common with Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam, each of which has sizable ivory smuggling activity, and in parallel, the size of ivory trade has been significantly increased since 2013. Laos has a small ivory market, whose principal role is to serve Chinese tourists, and has weak wildlife enforcement. Ivory from Laos enters Chine through the Mekong River, that flows across both States, and which is used even for the drugs and human trafficking.
China is the largest market for ivory. Although it is not possible to define it precisely the amount of ivory in circulation, the quantity of the “white gold” has increased by 170% between 2010-2011. The impossibility to evaluate the right quantity of ivory is particularly due to the fact that there exist two markets, the licit one and the illicit one.
In 2006, the Chinese Ministry of Culture declared ivory as part of the country’s “intangible cultural heritage”: China is the world’s largest ivory consumer, and Chinese nationals have been reported in ivory-related offenses and at all steps along the ivory value chain, except for the physical poaching. The licit market for ivory in China is provided for by an annual government ration of five tons of ivory from a 62-ton stockpile, acquired by China in 2008.

Since the ratification of the CITES, in 1981, the Chinese Government realized a growing involvement of the public sphere in the ivory sector, imposing a strict regulation (such as the prediction of routine inspections; the obtaining of proper paperwork to be shown as a prove of being authorized in treating ivory; ID cards for every single ivory product…), which is more functional on paper than in practice. A 2011-survey prove that 20 of the 32 retail visited had not the ID card, or those cards were not of the correct ivory object.
About the illicit ivory market there is little information, anyway through confiscations, judiciary documents and investigations, it is possible to say that a large amount of illicit ivory enters to China: WildAid and Save the Elephants’s 2014 report estimated that 70% of the total Chinese ivory is illicit, and that 57% of licensed ivory structures trades illegal ivory, too.

At the moment, the attention paid to the ivory issue is absolutely insufficient: the protection of the remaining elephants population is essential in order to guarantee that those animals will not meet extinction. Moreover, fighting against ivory trade would mean fighting against organized crime. It is important that all the Governments work together, so that ivory starts to be regarded and considered as an ecological organized crime and its value begin to decrease; enhancement of the coordination of national data and intelligence; reinforce of the diligence along global transport chain.

OIPA stands against the ivory trade as one of the most hideous crime, that lead to the death of innocent, beautiful, helpful animals and of those men, the anti-poaching guards, who try every day to preserve and to ward the natural biodiversity.

See more: http://www.oipainternational.org/stand-for-elephants/

L'articolo THE IVORY CURSE: A CRIMINAL STORY – Dossier proviene da OIPA.