Wildlife Trade - CITES Issues

[Lisbeth]

The pro-trade arguments generally focus on the need to raise money for conservation in Africa

I doubt very much that this is where the money of the private farmer's would end up.

[Lisbeth]

OP-ED

By Rowan Martin• 23 October 2019

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, (CITES) needs to be radically revised if it is to meet the ever-changing needs of African wildlife conservation.

In the closing plenary session of the most recent meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES (CoP18, Geneva, 26 August 2019), a declaration was made by nine members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) – namely Botswana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eswatini, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania (spokesperson for the group), Zambia and Zimbabwe. The declaration expressed grave concerns with the implementation of the convention and over the anti-sustainable use and anti-trade ideology that came to light during the polarised discussions on African charismatic large mammals.

The SADC members emphasised the effectiveness of their conservation models and stated that they would reconsider whether there are any meaningful benefits from their continued membership in CITES. The full text of the declaration is available in an article by Ivo Vegter in Daily Maverick (3 September 2019).

What I question in this article is the suitability of CITES in its present form to function as the single treaty regulating all international trade in wild species of fauna and flora. The first statement in the SADC declaration expresses the grave concern which the SADC parties to CITES have “… with regard to the implementation of this Convention”.

I will argue that the problem does not lie in “implementation” per se – it lies in the flawed structure of the treaty itself.

To understand the flaws we need to examine the shared history of CITES and the US Endangered Species Act (ESA). The ESA was signed into law by President Richard Nixon on 28 December 1973.

The text of the CITES convention was agreed at a meeting of 80 countries in Washington DC on 3 March 1973 and the treaty entered into force on 1 July 1975. In many ways, CITES is no more than a pale shadow of the ESA.

Both the ESA and CITES:

- Have a focus on individual species and are preoccupied with species extinction;

- Rely on a simplified system of attaching labels to species (the ESA labels are “Endangered” or “Threatened” and the CITES labels are “Appendix I” or “Appendix II”. The solutions to wildlife population declines are “hard-wired” to their listings);

- Insist that listing decisions be based on “best available science” – with the emphasis being on biological science rather than economics. Neither can accommodate the science of complex systems – there is a blind faith in reductionist science;

- Treat the issue of human livelihoods as secondary to biological criteria;

- Are unable to accommodate the notion of beneficial trade; and

- Both suffer from the conviction that their listings afford “protection” to species.

I will elaborate on these six points in the text that follows.

My own involvement in CITES dates back to the time when Zimbabwe acceded to it in 1981. At the time of acceding, Zimbabwe entered a reservation against the listing of the Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) on Appendix I of CITES in accordance with Article XXIII and maintained the reservation until its crocodile population was transferred to Appendix II at CoP4 in Botswana in 1983.

In 1985 I carried out a consultancy for the CITES secretariat to establish a quota system for the export of ivory from Africa (CITES CoP5 Inf.5.3 available from the author). My role was that of providing the range states with the methodology needed to estimate their own quotas. The quota system was adopted at CoP5 in Buenos Aires in 1985 (Resolution Conf. 5.12).

Immediately following the implementation of the quota system, the results appeared promising. In the 10 years prior to 1985 perhaps 1,000 tonnes of ivory were being exported annually from Africa. Barbier et al. (1990) show that from 912 tonnes of ivory leaving Africa in 1985 (immediately before the inception of the quota system), the legal trade dropped to 805 tonnes in 1986, 331 tonnes in 1987 and 142 tonnes in 1988. This improvement was not good enough for the parties to CITES and the entire elephant population of Africa was transferred to Appendix I at CoP7 in Lausanne 1989.

Inevitably, it led to Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe taking reservations against the listing, which they maintained until their elephant populations were transferred back to Appendix II in 1997. South Africa did not enter a reservation but its elephant population was transferred to Appendix II in 2000. I will return to the Lausanne CoP after the next item in order to preserve the chronological order of my involvement in CITES.

In 1987 I did a consultancy for CITES on the status of leopards in sub-Saharan Africa which was presented at CoP6 in Ottawa. The study found that leopards were surprisingly abundant throughout Africa and did not merit their listing on Appendix I (done at CoP1 in Bern in 1976). In the discussion of my report, the delegate from France stated angrily that he did not care how abundant leopards were:

“France does not want to see any trade in leopard skins.” Brigitte Bardot’s campaign against women wearing fur coats made of spotted cat skins had clearly got to him.

But the lesson is clear – many of the CITES parties are not interested in scientific criteria for listing species on CITES appendices.

The Lausanne CoP (1989) was perhaps the first CITES meeting where the massive impact of the animal rights NGOs became obvious. As delegates approached the conference hall (the Palais de Beaulieu) they were forced to walk through a tunnel of protesters dressed as elephants, waving placards and shouting slogans. Their presence extended into the main forum of the meeting.

I was part of the Zimbabwe delegation when the vote was held on the proposal to list the African elephant on Appendix I. Prior to the vote, Zimbabwe had proposed a secret ballot because of the extreme pressures being exerted on some of the parties to agree to the ivory trade ban. The Zimbabwe proposal was rejected, and the significance of this requires discussion.

Under the rules of procedure at that time, any proposal seeking a secret ballot had to be voted upon by the full quorum of the CoP and required a simple majority to be accepted. This made it very difficult to obtain a secret vote. Certain parties (eg the US and Australia) were opposed on principle to secret voting on environmental matters. However, the secret voting problem was solved at CoP9 in 1994. There still remains the vote-rigging problem described by Emmanuel Koro.

It was decided to hold a “roll-call” vote because of the gravity of the issue. The procedure for such a vote entailed using a random number to select the first country to vote and the chair of the session would then call out the name of the country that had to say “Yes” if it supported the listing on Appendix I or “No” if it opposed it. The sequence of voting thereafter followed the alphabetical order of the countries after the first one. The outcome was predictable – and could be described as a “monstrous tragicomic scene”.

Vanuatu, a small Pacific island nation with a population of fewer than 300,000 persons, was selected to vote first. The chair called its name and in clarion tones, Vanuatu shouted ‘Yes’. At that moment the scales fell from my eyes and I was suddenly able to understand the truth. This was a lunatic democratic express careering off the tracks. Vanuatu has no elephants and would not be accountable for the subsequent costs of protecting and managing Zimbabwe’s elephants without an income from ivory. It is doubtful whether Vanuatu would have reached this decision in the absence of the intensive lobbying that took place at the meeting.

After the vote, I wandered the corridors of the Palais, exchanging views with key persons at the CoP. I asked them if they were happy with the decision. None were. I asked them whether they would be willing to participate in a “think-tank” in Zimbabwe if I could find the funding and organise it in such a way that the results of the meeting remained “off-record”. Most of them said yes and the meeting was held in 1991. The agenda for the meeting was simply to identify the shortcomings of CITES.

This led to the spate of proposals presented by the SACIM states (Botswana, Malawi, Namibia and Zimbabwe) to CoP8 in Kyoto, Japan, in 1992.

Included in these proposals was one extolling the benefits of trade which was adopted after considerable resistance from parties that opposed trade on principle. Another SACIM draft resolution proposing new criteria for listing species on the appendices was provisionally adopted (Com.8.11), subject to revisions to be made before the next CoP. This resolution attempted to take into account the benefits of trade and the paragraph below appears in its preamble.

“14. A fundamental assumption in most interpretations of the Convention is that trade has primarily negative effects on conservation. In 150 Resolutions approved by the Conference of the Parties nowhere is it stated that trade may have benefits for conservation. Trade is seen as something to be tolerated while species are abundant, increasingly restricted as species are threatened, and finally prohibited when they are endangered with extinction (this philosophy is also enshrined in the US Endangered Species Act). It is challenged in the draft resolution Doc. 8.48 (Rev.) which lists a number of types of trade which contribute positively to species survival, regardless of their status with respect to extinction.”

The revised resolution (Conf.9.24) was adopted at CoP9 in Fort Lauderdale, US, and has since been amended at CoPs 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17; and amended by the secretariat in compliance with decision 14.19 and with the decisions adopted at the 61st meeting of the standing committee. It has successfully eliminated all considerations of beneficial trade, introduced the precautionary principle and become a paradise for bureaucrats.

In a conversation with Nigel Leader-Williams at a workshop in London in 1991 when IUCN was considering the new criteria to be proposed for listing species on the CITES appendices, we both agreed that it is one thing to describe the biological status of a species but quite another matter to decide what would be the best way to rectify that status if it is not to our liking. We deplored the current situation where species were frequently listed on Appendix I when the global status of the species was secure but subpopulations in some range states were declining. If a species is not globally endangered then it does not belong on Appendix I.

We also agreed that science had not yet arrived at any definitive method for evaluating the likelihood of extinction – “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future,” as Niels Bohr, Nobel Laureate in Physics and father of the atomic model, said, ca 1920.

At the close of CoP8 in Kyoto, I had a conversation with Harry Messel who was one of the drafters of the original CITES Treaty in 1973. I asked him whether, if he was doing the same task again, he would do it the same way. His reply was:

“Hell no, Rowan. You have to understand that in 1973 we knew very little about the extent of trade in wildlife… we suspected it was having an impact. If I were rewriting the articles of CITES now, I would get rid of the appendices altogether and move the entire treaty on to a quota system. We have seen how successful this has been in destroying the illegal trade in crocodiles.”

So, I set my sights on proposing a review of the treaty at CoP9 (Fort Lauderdale) in 1994. To this end, I prepared a document titled “CITES II – The Second Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora”. It incorporated Messel’s ideas on moving CITES towards a quota system and dispensing with the appendices.

Because I knew that it would automatically generate an adverse reaction at the CoP, I circulated it privately to those parties that had strong views on sustainable use. Because of Zimbabwe’s radical reputation at CITES, Canada agreed to present the proposal. The motion to undertake a review of the effectiveness of the convention was carried and the consultancy was awarded to Environmental Resources Management (UK, linked to Price Waterhouse Coopers) by the standing committee (SC36.5 Summary Report).

The review was a damp squib. The consultants avoided looking at the highest level issues such as the articles of the treaty wherein I believe the major problems of the convention lie. To attack CITES in this way would also call the ESA into scrutiny and this was unpalatable to the US. The US had used its privileged position to have its own advisers attached to the consultants and this prejudiced the study from the outset. One of the most significant findings (or lack of findings) in the review was that the consultants found no species that had unequivocally benefited from their listings on the CITES appendices.

CITES went on to develop an “Action Plan (for Improving the Effectiveness of the Convention)” which was adopted at CoP11 in Kenya (Doc.11.12.1) – six years after CoP9. The action plan introduces no radical changes but places emphasis on “capacity-building” and improved law enforcement. Implicit in this is the notion that developing countries will benefit from training by northern hemisphere experts… yet more neo-colonialism.

I was sufficiently disillusioned with CITES by the year 2000 that I vowed to have nothing more to do with it. I had wasted nearly two decades trying to improve the treaty to no avail.

Then, in 2011, the CITES secretariat invited bids for a consultancy to do a study on a Decision-Making Mechanism for a Process of Trade in Ivory (DMM study). The study arose from Decision 14.77 made at CoP14 (The Hague) in 2007. The remuneration was sufficient to make me break my vow in the paragraph above.

I assembled a team of experts to carry out the work and the final report was submitted to the secretariat in May 2012 (five years after the decision at the Hague).

I presented the final report to the 62nd standing committee meeting in Geneva in July 2012 and fielded comments from the parties and observers. My analysis of the discussion and the events from 2007 to 2016 reaches the conclusion that, “SADC must expect that all attempts to pursue a legal ivory trade through the present CITES mechanisms will fail.”

One important finding from the DMM study was that regional commissions recognised by CITES (eg the International Whaling Commission) appear to be functioning well. These institutional arrangements go some way to reducing the scale mismatches identified in the DMM and increase the likelihood of local participation in decision-making, buy-in and compliance. If SADC were to set up its own treaty for management of elephants and trade in ivory, it could reasonably expect such a treaty to be recognised by CITES and its member states should be able to distance themselves from the more annoying aspects of CITES and exercise their sovereign rights. However, given the many flaws in CITES, the SADC countries might prefer to leave the treaty.

*****

Adaptive Management is the best methodology for achieving sustainable use. Ruitenbeek and Cartier (2001) remark that it is the only method for dealing with complex systems and observe that “we have become a culture of control freaks”.

CITES has never been able to accommodate adaptive management.

I remember an occasion at one of the CITES CoPs when the US was haranguing the elephant range states for not counting their elephant populations often enough to set accurate hunting quotas. Peter Dollinger spoke up:

“The distinguished delegate from the United States is exhorting the African states to carry out more population counts. I would point out to him that Switzerland has been managing its deer population very competently for the past 600 years. We have not yet counted them.”

CITES is mistakenly seen as a protective device – but it does not, in fact, protect species. That can only be done by the range states (leaving aside marine species). The limited tool at its disposal is the prohibition of legal international trade between its parties. If Western importing nations were requested by range states to assist in prohibiting or limiting trade in certain species, the treaty would be fulfilling its original purpose. But if the importing states decide unilaterally that trade is undesirable, this exceeds the reasons for coming together to form a treaty.

There is ample evidence from the stricter domestic legislation being invoked by importing countries to suggest that the treaty is not working. It is unsatisfactory to quote the “precautionary principle” as an antidote to the above statement, because it cannot be critically tested – to argue that a species, if removed from Appendix II and so denied the “protection” of CITES, might become threatened is to use “Catch-22”. If the CITES parties will not allow the hypothesis to be tested, it cannot be falsified.

In 2016, Zimbabwe submitted a proposal to CoP17 in South Africa to remove the annotation affecting the listing of its elephant population on Appendix II which was preventing trade in ivory. In the overview to this proposal, Zimbabwe queried what the parties understand by the term “experimental trade” (CITES Doc. 11.31.1 is titled “Experimental Trade in Ivory” and the title reoccurs on other documents). The entire edifice of constraints contained in the annotation is anti-experimental – which is not good science.

This could have been addressed by allowing Zimbabwe the opportunity to trade in the manner proposed and, hence, provide an experimental control for the present system that is not working. However, the parties rejected the proposal.

Humans have evolved a basic toolbox which enables them to cope with the exigencies of daily living: they follow the basic principles of commerce and have conditioned responses to a wide range of stimuli. Yet they are frequently expected to abandon this toolbox when considering conservation. It has done no favour to the cause of conservation that the use of wild animals and their environments has been placed in a “special category” that departs from the conventional manner in which people handle their day-to-day decisions (Murphree and Martin 2016, page 8).

Ian Parker (pers.comm.) makes a number of insightful observations about CITES that are relevant to my postulation that the fundamental problems of CITES lie in its structure. There are plenty of trading treaties in the world set up for agricultural commodities and minerals that function very well. The general pattern of these treaties is that each commodity has its own treaty (eg wheat, maize, cotton, tobacco) and it is the traders that shape the functioning of the treaty.

The situation in CITES where environmentalists and academics who understand very little of the mechanics of trade presume to draw up rules for international commerce would be unthinkable for agricultural commodities. The number of wild fauna and flora species that are traded internationally far exceeds the number of agricultural commodities. So, the use of a single treaty (“one size fits all”) such as CITES is ambitious in the extreme.

Hank Jenkins, commenting on the recently ended CITES CoP 18 in Geneva, remarked, “Thank God threatened wildlife DOESN’T need CITES because, if they did, they would be EXTINCT!”

This quote from Marshall Murphree (1997) is an appropriate note on which to end this article: “International environmentalism has failed to reverse the negative trends in the resource/demand ratio of our equation. Part of the answer lies in issues that are not politically expedient for powerful segments of its constituency. But part of the answer also lies in the inadequacies of its conventions, its instruments of collective international husbandry and management of the resources themselves. Manifestly, these have not adequately produced the effects for which they were created and their design, their implementation and the role we assign to them bear re-examination.

“They are extremely costly in time, effort and money and, unless they can be made to work, we should throw them out and start again.” DM

Rowan B Martin was head of research at the Zimbabwe Wildlife Department from 1987 to 1997. He developed the first community wildlife management programmes in Zimbabwe in the 1980s (Campfire). He is a founder member of the African Elephant and Rhino Specialist Group; a member of the IUCN Sustainable Use Specialist Group and chair of the southern African branch; represented Zimbabwe in the CITES forum; and carried out a number of consultancies for the CITES secretariat. He is a wildlife consultant and has prepared management plans for elephants and rhinos and restructured wildlife departments in Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa.

[Klipspringer]

https://africageographic.com/blog/trade ... s-rulings/

Trade in elephant, giraffe and rhino: 3 African countries to take on CITES rulings
Posted on November 4, 2019 by News Desk in the NEWS DESK post series.


NEWS DESK POST from a report by Emmanuel Koro
Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe will be submitting protest documents that will allow them to legally trade in elephants, rhinos and giraffes. The three countries are declaring themselves independent of the controls exercised by the Geneva-based UN Convention on International Trade In Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

They are joined in their protest by another five unnamed SADC (Southern African Development Community) countries whose proposals to trade in live wildlife and wildlife products were also rejected at the tri-annual CITES meeting in August.

These positions, known as “reservations”, will be made known to CITES by 26 November 2019. They signify acceptance of the Final Draft Report that was released at the SADC meeting of Ministers of the Environment in Tanzania on Friday 25 October 2019. The Report recommends that all SADC countries protest the decisions to restrict trade in species in defiance of compelling scientific evidence that suggests such restrictions are unnecessary and because of a rigged voting system at CITES COP18 in Geneva.

The SADC countries’ move is also in protest to the first-ever listing of “Threatened” in regards to the thriving giraffe populations of Southern Africa.

According to various articles of the Convention, a reservation over a particular species means that Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe, as well as the other five unnamed protesting SADC countries, would no longer have to adhere to CITES rules with respect to that particular species. They would no longer be restricted from trading in the species and their products with other countries that also claim the same reservation, or non-members of the Convention.

“We agreed as a region that we will all deposit reservations on our three major species which is the giraffe, the elephant and the white rhino,” said Zimbabwe’s Acting Minister of Environment, Tourism and Hospitality Industry, Mr Nqobizita Mangaliso Ndlovu. “We want to believe that this is the starting point for us as a block to register serious displeasure in the way we are being treated. I think we will be heard. It is a very bold political statement that we have taken.”

For a long time SADC rural communities have been urging their governments to protest CITES decisions by either pulling out of it or issuing an appropriate reservation.

“Botswana communities would like to welcome the protest documents to UN CITES by SADC countries,” said Mr Siyoka Simasiku, Executive Director for Ngamiland Council of NGOs (NCONGO). “The SADC decision will ensure that Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) programme in Botswana yield meaningful tourism benefits to communities not only through hunting but through other development projects.”

Meanwhile, Mr Charles Jonga, Director of the Zimbabwe CAMPFIRE Programme that promotes conservation and development in rural areas through wise use of wildlife and natural resources said that SADC countries had taken a bold step in listening to the voices of their local communities.

Botswana Permanent Secretary for the Minister of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism, Mr Thato Raphaka, said that Botswana would take reservations in protest of CITES COP18 decisions on the giraffe and elephant.

Elsewhere, asked if his country would make a reservations submission to CITES by 26 November 2019, Namibia’s Minister of Environment and Tourism, Mr Pohamba Shifeta said, “Yes, we will do the same.”

At CITES COP18, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe submitted a joint proposal to trade in their thousands of tons of stockpiled elephant ivory, but were defeated by 81% no-votes, with only 19% supporting their proposal. Zambia also lost heavily in its amended bid to have its elephant population downlisted from CITES Appendix I to II for only non-commercial hunting trophies and hides, and leather from elephants killed in elephant-human conflict, without trade in raw ivory. That proposal was not accepted (82% to 18%). Eswatini (Swaziland) lost its bid to trade in its stockpiled white rhino horn.

Observers and CITES CoP18 said that the heavy losses collectively suffered by SADC countries were suspicious and would forever get contested. They dismissed the UN CITES voting process as “tainted, rigged and not free and fair”.

Voting rigging suspected.

Mr Godfrey Harris, managing director of the Los Angeles-based Ivory Education Institute, said the rigged voting system includes “bribing the leadership of former colonies through board memberships, speaking honoraria, luxury travel, training scholarships and other gifts”.

“SADC countries should throw the CITES COP18 resolutions out because of the overbearing approach of the west to African wildlife management and use, no matter the niceties of the Treaty (CITES),” said Mr Harris.

In a thunderous statement to the final plenary session of the CITES meeting, he asked: “What gives you in the west the right to repeat the colonial mistakes of the 19th century? How dare you dictate to Africa or other former colonial areas how they should manage their natural resources?”

Mr Harris added that there “seems little difference” between the millions spent to corrupt Africa’s leadership now and the arrogance that Bismarck, Rhodes, Livingston, Kruger and other colonialists brought to Africa with their version of civilisation (Western), their favoured style of religion (Christianity), and their form of economics (government-protected capitalism).

“We fought for political independence and we now have it,” said SADC Tanzania Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism Director of Wildlife, Dr Maurus Msuha. “The next fight for us is the fight for the right to use our resources for the development of our own people. This needs political pressure from our governments who should say that we don’t need this [being denied our sovereign rights to trade in our wildlife products] anymore.”

Delivering a SADC statement in his capacity as SADC Chair, Tanzania told the plenary session at CITES COP18 that the time had come to seriously reconsider “whether there are any meaningful benefits from our membership to CITES”.

Reacting to SADC countries’ unprecedented heavy losses in a CITES voting process, President Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe announced his country’s radical protest plan against CITES. This triggered excitement at CITES CoP18 among the pro-sustainable use delegates from different parts of the world who view CITES as having continued to punish SADC countries by denying them their sovereign right to benefit from their wildlife.

“That’s the way to go [reservations and pull-out],” said Namibia’s Minister of Environment and Tourism, Shifeta. “We are not happy with CITES CoP18 and also not happy with CoP17. We have other partners who can help us to support our conservation by trading with us. We don’t want donations. We need and want trade. We are being punished at every CITES.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Emmanuel Koro is a Johannesburg-based international award-winning environmental journalist who has written extensively on environment and development issues in Africa.

[Lisbeth]

It was to be expected.


All these big world-wide well-meant organizations will break up sooner or later as there is nothing to keep their members to obey the rules decided by the majority if their own national egoistic needs are in contrast.

[Lisbeth]

=80895&tl_period_type=3&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=First%20Thing%20TGIF%208%20November%202019%20Libstar&utm_content=First%20Thing%20TGIF%208%20November%202019%20Libstar+CID_dd3b3c1d0d8e44d4ca378dd8fa617caa&utm_source=TouchBasePro&utm_term=How%20to%20save%20CITES%20if%20its%20worth%20saving]How to save CITES (if it’s worth saving)

Opinionista • Ivo Vegter • 8 November 2019

If the 16 countries of the Southern African Development Community were to withdraw, it would be a body blow to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. To keep parties to the treaty in, animal rights NGOs have to be kicked out.

The Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES) was founded upon the principle “that peoples and states are the best protectors of their own wild fauna and flora”.

The treaty states that this requires international co-operation. Note that it does not say this requires international diktats, imposed upon people and states against their will.

Yet that is exactly what is happening at CITES. As the SADC Declaration at the 18th Conference of the Parties (CoP18) makes clear, states that actually have wildlife to protect are sacrificing their sovereignty over their own natural resources, and are being forced to bow to the protectionist ideology that opposes wildlife trade and sustainable use as a matter of principle.

Let’s be clear. Animal rights and animal welfare are not the same thing. Animal welfare is a perfectly reasonable goal for lobbying. Animal rights, however, goes much further, and attributes to animals the same fundamental rights one would afford humans. It is an extremist minority view, albeit one promoted by lobby groups that command hundreds of millions of dollars in donor funds. Animal rights organisations are opposed to any and all use of animals. Most oppose eating meat. Some would ban pets, if they could.

This fundamentally contradicts the principle of “sustainable utilisation” upon which both international and domestic conservation norms are based. The World Conservation Strategy of 1980 was written by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), on commission from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), with funding from what was then known as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), since renamed as the Worldwide Fund for Nature. The IUCN also drafted the CITES treaty itself, and maintains the Red List of threatened and endangered species.

It says the three main objectives of living resource conservation are “to maintain essential ecological processes and life support systems…, to preserve genetic diversity…, and to ensure the sustainable utilisation of species and ecosystems (notably fish and other wildlife, forests and grazing lands), which support millions of rural communities as well as major industries” (my italics).

The Convention on Biological Diversity of 1992 reaffirms both the sovereign right of states to ensure the conservation of their own natural resources, and the imperative of sustainable utilisation for the benefit of local people and indigenous communities.

Animal rights groups, however, reject these principles. They do not support utilisation of wildlife, sustainable or otherwise, and believe they have a right to dictate, from the comfort of their elitist perches in rich countries, what poor countries are entitled to do with their own wildlife. Their policy is one of preservation, not conservation.

Consider, for example, the listing of giraffes on Appendix II, which subjects international trade in the animals or their products to strict CITES regulations. The idea to list them was cooked up by animal rights groups, and promoted by such conservation experts as Dolly Parton and Leonardo DiCaprio. Lobbyists distributed fluffy giraffe toys at CoP18, because the only science they were interested in was the science of emotional manipulation.

“Fraud, rigged elections, sold votes bought by the Europeans,” declared Onkokame Mokaila, Botswana’s minister of environmental affairs, natural resources, conservation and tourism.

Wealthy international NGOs bribe poor countries by promising them money for preservationist projects and even sponsoring their attendance at CITES meetings. This may explain why the Central African Republic, Chad, Kenya, Mali, Niger and Senegal proposed the giraffe listing, even though the CITES Secretariat recommended against it, only two out of nine subspecies of giraffe are considered to be endangered, they would be better managed on a population level rather than a species level, the measure was merely “precautionary”, and SADC countries opposed the listing because giraffes in southern African range states are under no threat whatsoever as a result of international trade in giraffe or giraffe products.

This was a tremendous win for the animal rights groups, however. They’ve now shown they only need a few populations in a few countries to be under pressure, in order to restrict trade in an entire species, globally. They will not stop with giraffes. They will get more and more species listed using this trick.

They will ignore the success of South Africa’s conservation model, in which private game ranching played a key role in bringing numerous species back from extinction – species such as the rhino, sable antelope, Cape mountain zebra, roan antelope, bontebok, blesbok and black wildebeest, many of which are now far more populous on private ranches than in national parks. Wildlife was largely extinct outside national parks in 1965. Today, thanks to private property rights in game, hunting and wildlife trading, population numbers have soared. Wildlife is now more abundant in South Africa than at any time in the last 200 years, and more than three-quarters of it is privately owned.

In South Africa, about 72% of wildlife ranching revenue comes from hunting, while only 5% comes from eco-tourism, according to Wouter van Hoven of the Centre for Wildlife Management at the University of Pretoria. The rest comes from live sales and meat production.

In the rest of southern Africa, the split is an even more stark 90% consumptive utilisation to 10% tourism, according to Dr Brian Child, speaking at the recent Africa Wildlife Economy Summit. Perversely, the summit was sponsored by an animal rights group and entirely excluded the consumptive use of wildlife from the agenda. This left it up to speakers such as Child and Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa to raise sustainable use in their speeches.

“Safari hunting is a vital cog in wildlife economy,” said Mnangagwa. “Profits from hunting are used to provide water and fencing to reduce human-wildlife conflict and law enforcement against poachers. We continue to call for free trade in hunting products as these have positive impact on the economies of our countries.”

It takes about 1,000 tourists’ conservation fees to make up for the hunting fee of a single specimen of a valuable species. Most wildlife ranches are off the beaten tourist track, and have no prospect of ever attracting enough tourists to compensate for lucrative hunts. Many would go under and be turned over to livestock or crop agriculture, causing incalculable damage to biodiversity and conservation.

The idea of private ownership of wildlife does not sit right with activists in countries such as the US, where wildlife is publicly owned and managed entirely by the government alone. Yet the public ownership and government management model has failed dismally in many African countries. Kenya is perhaps the most infamous, having lost some 85% of its wildlife since it banned hunting in 1977.

This is why South Africa’s conservation policies echo the World Conservation Strategy and Convention on Biological Diversity on the subject of sustainable utilisation of wildlife.

“South Africa is the third most biologically diverse country in the world in terms of species richness and endemism,” reads the foreword to the National Biodiversity Economy Strategy of 2016.

“Conservation and sustainable utilisation of South Africa’s biological diversity is thus of strategic importance in terms of provision of ecosystem services, now and in the future. This species richness provides an important basis for economic growth and development that underpins the well-being of our society.”

It continues: “The biodiversity economy of South Africa encompasses the businesses and economic activities that either directly depend on biodiversity for their core business or that contribute to conservation of biodiversity through their activities. In other words, the ambit of the biodiversity economy is the bioprospecting… and wildlife sub-sectors (i.e. live sales of indigenous wildlife; sale of game meat and the hunting industry).”

If SADC, which represents 16 African countries south of the equator, comprising some 285 million people, were to withdraw from CITES, it would cripple the treaty. It would remove any remaining vestige of credibility the treaty might once have had.

To save the CITES treaty, however, will require decisive action.

First, CITES needs to kick out the animal rights groups. Official accreditation to CITES meetings should require organisations to explicitly affirm they will not oppose the principle of sustainable utilisation. Better yet, prohibit lobbying altogether at CITES meetings, and let member countries vote on the basis of scientific evidence compiled by the CITES Secretariat. At CoP18, the vote went against the science-based recommendations of the secretariat 11 times, thanks to the pernicious influence of the animal rights groups in attendance.

Second, decisions should be based on the wishes of range states alone. The rest of the world has no right to dictate to SADC countries how to manage their wildlife, or override their objections to CITES decisions.

Why should Hollywood stars have the power, through emotion-laden donation drives for animal rights organisations, to impose their preservationist ideology on foreign countries against their will? That is nothing less than eco-colonialism. Sorry, Leonardo DiCaprio and Dolly Parton. Nobody made you the great white saviours of darkest Africa.

Third, animals ought to be managed on a population level, not a species level. It makes no sense to restrict the use or trade in species in range states where populations are healthy, just because there are other range states, elsewhere, where populations are under threat. CITES is perfectly capable of distinguishing export permits by country of origin, and should do so.

Fourth, the financial influence of animal rights groups should be neutered. It is probably impossible to prevent them from pouring millions into poor countries for preservation projects that hew to their narrow ideology. And frankly, that’s not a bad thing. Let them put their money where their mouths are. Let them buy up hunting ranches and turn them into eco-tourism reserves. That would be an excellent use of their money, and would put their ideology to the test in the real world.

However, prohibit the sponsorship of governmental CITES delegations by lobby groups. Make all CITES votes public. Launch a comprehensive investigation into allegations of vote-buying and other undue interference in the proceedings of CITES.

Only through a transparent process which respects the wishes of countries that actually have animals to protect, and upholds the principles of sustainable use and trade which CITES is supposed to facilitate, can the organisation regain its legitimacy. 2

Failing that, SADC would be perfectly justified in withdrawing from the CITES treaty, and reclaim the sovereign rights of its members. A corrupt CITES, hijacked by radical animal rights ideology, does not deserve our support.

[Lisbeth]

CITES is certainly not perfect, far from! But if each country, especially African countries, are allowed to do whatever they think is of their own interest, the world will be without wild animals within a relatively short time, I am afraid.

[Lisbeth]

Posted on March 9, 2020 by Africa Geographic Editorial in the DECODING SCIENCE post series



In a recent report, TRAFFIC highlights how corruption undermines the CITES processes and regulations, using specific examples of abuse of the documentation process. The study was part of the USAID-funded Targeting Natural Resource Corruption project aimed at strengthening anti-corruption knowledge and practices and recommends several ways of reducing the risks.

Regulated by CITES, the trade in fauna and flora species listed under the three Appendices requires various types of formal documentation including both export and import permits, certificates of various forms and notifications to the Member States. Permits and certificates are issued by the Management Authorities of specific countries and are, in theory, backed by the Scientific Authority that must confirm that the species concerned was not illegally obtained and that the trade will not be detrimental to its overall conservation. It is within this documentation process that the highest potential for abuse of the regulations arises.

Rather than focussing on illegal trade that seeks to avoid all formal forms of inspection (smuggling), the report examines situations where the trade masquerades as legal. Several reports and specific case studies were analysed to understand the methods behind the abuse of the documentation processes, as well as how corruption facilitates this practice.

TRAFFIC identifies several different methods of abuse of CITES documentation, including:

- The intentional declaration of false information on the documents such as misleading information on specific species identification, quantities, the source of the species and the value of the contents.

- Altered documentation such as using originally authentic permits but changing parts of the vital information to allow for the trade in species that might otherwise not have been issued a permit.

- Unofficial payment for documents to officials at various levels

- Counterfeit documents, often of a very high quality

- Re-using or photocopying documents and the use of expired or stolen documents

The report includes specific examples where corruption has been exposed, and each provides different insights into the multitude of ways in which corrupt parties can manipulate the system. In 2011 in Guinea, permits were issued for the export of captive-bred apes despite the complete absence of any captive breeding centres in the country itself. This case eventually resulted in the arrest and prosecution of the head of the CITES Management Authority of Guinea. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, a permit was legally issued for the export of 100 red-fronted parrots but was then modified to allow for the export of 200 African grey parrots. In South Africa and Vietnam, an expose revealed corrupt practices regarding the trade in rhino horn. Corrupt professional hunters were alleged to have obtained permits under false pretences for “pseudo-hunting” – where the intention was always to trade the horn commercially. On the Vietnam side, the horn was seldom declared, and the CITES documents were consistently re-used until they expired.

In all illegal wildlife trade, corruption is identified as a key enabling factor, and while it is difficult to estimate the scale and reach, the abuse of CITES documentation processes is facilitated by corruption in various forms from junior right to senior management positions. The issuing of documentation places certain individuals in positions of power that could be subject to temptation or threats.

The report recommends several strategies to tackle the various forms of corruption, while also acknowledging the realities of the situations in different countries. The report emphasises that the prosecution of corrupt officials is vital not only to punish those responsible but to create an environment where corruption is not tolerated. Unfortunately, the report acknowledges that, at present, such investigations rarely result in the prosecution of a high-level government official. The report also calls for capacity building within the countries concerned, which includes ensuring that officials have adequate scientific knowledge and technical expertise to prevent and detect instances of abuse.

On a more immediate level, electronic permits and fraud-proof systems and technologies could go a long way to reduce the opportunity for corrupt interactions, as well as to make it more difficult to falsify permits. The eCITES initiative aims to streamline and automate CITES permit structures.

The report emphasises the need for comprehensive protocols, including checks and balances, to reduce the risk of corruption which undermines the integrity of the CITES system. However, this relies heavily on the commitment and capacity of specific countries.

The report was compiled by Willow Othwaite, who is the Research and Analysis Senior Programme Officer of TRAFFIC, and TRAFFIC itself is a non-governmental organisation working to ensure the maintenance of biodiversity and sustainability in the trade in wildlife and plant species. They work in strategic partnerships with CITES organisations and other environmental organisations to provide the necessary research and statistics to direct decision-makers and policy.

[Lisbeth]

What exactly is CITES and how does it work?

Posted on March 10, 2020 by Africa Geographic Editorial in the DECODING SCIENCE post series.



Created as the brainchild of the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) in the 70s, CITES makes environmental news headlines regularly, often with highly polarizing results. There are, however, several misconceptions surrounding this tool of the wildlife conservation industry and, as a result, its guiding principles tend to be lost beneath the layers of opposing conservation perspectives.

CITES founding philosophy

The treaty provides the following guidance as to its aim, operation, and how it should be interpreted:

- Recognizing that wild fauna and flora in their many beautiful and varied forms are an irreplaceable part of the natural systems of the earth which must be protected for this and the generations to come;

- Conscious of the ever-growing value of wild fauna and flora from aesthetic, scientific, cultural, recreational and economic points of view;

- Recognizing that peoples and States are and should be the best protectors of their wild fauna and flora;

- Recognizing, also, that international cooperation is essential for the protection of certain species of wild fauna and flora against over-exploitation through international trade; Convinced of the urgency of taking appropriate measures to this end;

CITES is a treaty, not an organization

CITES stands for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora; in other words, it is a multinational treaty of enormous scope that regulates international trade to avoid the over-exploitation of both animals and plants. As the name suggests, the ultimate intention behind the treaty is to protect endangered species, rather than control the actions of the member state, hence the Appendix listings (see below). At the time of writing, almost every sovereign state in the world is a party to the treaty, meaning that they have ratified the treaty and are, in theory, bound by its provisions. (A conversation around the nuances of international law is beyond the scope of this article).

It falls to the member states to use the treaty provisions and appendixes as guidance for creating their national laws and policies surrounding trade in animals and plants.

Not just about elephants and pangolins

When issues surround CITES surface and make headlines, they are almost always centred around the more contentious issues involving well-known animal species. The trade in ivory or rhino horn is a good example of this. While these issues rightly cause enormous consternation, the ambit of CITES goes far beyond these matters and provides a legal framework for the protection of more than 35,000 plant and animal species – meaning that it governs everything from the trade in furniture and musical instruments made from rare woods to trading in corals or caviar.

The Appendixes

CITES does not control all international trade in wild species – the basic starting point is that all trade is allowed unless an animal or plant is in some way threatened and is placed under one of three appendixes to the treaty.

- Appendix 1 – species threatened by extinction or by trade, such as cheetahs, chimpanzees and pangolins. Trade in animals listed under Appendix 1 is almost entirely banned except under exceptional circumstances, and both export and import permits are required. Any captive-bred animals are treated under the auspices of Appendix 2.

- Appendix 2 – species whose numbers could become threatened if subject to uncontrolled trade. Only an export permit is required for trading in animals and plants listed under this appendix.

- Appendix 3 – species included at the request of a member state wanting the cooperation of other countries to control exploitation.

It is for the member states to issue export and import permits (these can be subject to CITES scrutiny), but they are under an obligation to ensure that the species was legally obtained and should issue permits only if doing so will not be detrimental to the survival of the species. Although not mentioned explicitly by the treaty itself, a quota system is used to control trade – the member states put forward their suggested quota number that is subject to CITES approval. As a brief side note – if an animal’s listing is changed (for example, due to declining numbers, it is moved from Appendix 2 to Appendix 1), a country may enter what is known as a Reservation – essentially meaning that they object to this classification for whatever reason and that they do not consider themselves to be bound by the reduced trade. This is what the Democratic Republic of Congo did in the case of the trade in the African Grey Parrot.


CITES

Conference of Parties

Every three years, the parties to the convention (the signatory countries) meet to review the implementation of the Convention. It is here that the Appendix listing of individual species is revised as an ongoing discussion as to their numbers and the success (or otherwise) of conservation efforts). The states can also make recommendations to improve the efficiency of the implementation of the treaty.

Three permanent committees support the Conference of Parties: the Standing, Plant and Animal Committees, created from representatives of the Parties that exist to deal with the day-to-day operation of CITES, creating a budget and standing groups as well as providing advice regarding species numbers. Only sovereign states are parties to the CITES treaty (some international treaties do include signatories from other international bodies), but the CoP events are attended by observers from non-governmental organizations involved in conservation or trade, as well as several UN agencies. These groups can participate in the meetings but are not allowed to vote in the proceedings. The next Conference of Parties will be held in San José, Costa Rica in 2022.

Limitations

Quite aside from the more philosophical debates about sustainable use, CITES has the inherent limitations of any instrument of international law. There is no central enforcement agency, so infractions of state parties must be dealt with through more political and economic measures. In theory, Parties to the statute are required to have both Management and Scientific Authorities; laws prohibiting any trade in violation of CITES; penalties in the case of such trade; and laws providing for the confiscation of specimens, yet many Parties face severe challenges in this regard. If a Party is found to be in contravention of the treaty, the CITES Secretariat can recommend that other state Parties suspend all CITES-related trade.

CITES is a treaty related purely to the regulations of trade – it does not extend to conservation issues relating to habitat-loss or socio-economic challenges of wilderness areas.

Final word

As mentioned, the philosophy behind CITES aside, CITES is an international treaty and should be viewed as such. Countries are not forced to enter into an international agreement – they chose to do so and must face the responsibilities that choice confers. This does not necessarily mean agreement with every decision or restriction but rather, using the existing frameworks to voice those disagreements, as well as working towards international cooperation to guard against the over-exploitation of animal and plant species