Africa vs Africa conflict dominates CITES summit
Mbongeni Mguni | Tuesday November 22, 2022 06:00
Information coming out of the Conference of Parties (CoP), CITES’ (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) highest decision-making meeting held every three years, indicates that key proposals being pursued by Botswana and its regional neighbours have suffered setbacks.
The proposals include a once-off ivory sale of government-owned ivory stockpiles with the restriction that the funds are used for conservation initiatives. The last such sale took place in 2008 and before that, another sale was permitted in 1999.
“It failed the first stage. The second and final stage is next week Friday,” Wildlife and National Parks director, Kabelo Senyatso told The Monitor from Panama yesterday.
On Monday, the first day of the 11-day CoP, Zimbabwe and Botswana narrowly avoided the rejection of a proposal to give greater voting powers to countries that are affected by species, when major proposals are debated. The proposal was initially rejected, but a final decision has been postponed for later in the CoP.
Another proposal to give greater decision-making powers in CITES to communities living with species such as elephants were being debated at press time, with a major anti-hunting NGO lobbying voting members to reject the idea.
However, the stiffest resistance to proposals made by Botswana and its neighbours has come from a West African bloc of countries who have been the most vocal at the ongoing CoP.
The West African bloc, made up of countries such as Niger, Cote d’Ivoire, the Gambia, Benin, Nigeria, and Senegal, have led opposition to proposals from Botswana and its neighbours, while the region has been supported by its SADC allies such as Malawi, Tanzania, Eswatini, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The West African countries are part of a larger bloc of 32 African states, known as the African Elephant Coalition which have rallied against the region’s proposal for a once-off sale of ivory stockpiles at previous CoPs. This year Burkina Faso, Equatorial Guinea, Mali, and Senegal also want CITES to upgrade elephants in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe from Appendix II to Appendix I, the highest level category for endangered species where no international trade is allowed.
In a statement on Friday, the SADC states at CITES expressed frustration with the resistance to their proposals at the CoP.
“Our insights from the debates that we have had so far show an Africa that is not yet united and yet under CITES, Africa is treated as one region,” the SADC states said. “We as SADC countries want to work towards a united Africa. “So, we have a lot of ‘soul-searching’ to do so that we can find each other under the banner of the African Union. “The saddest moment for us was to see countries voting against a proposed Advisory Committee for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities under CITES. “Yet decisions being taken here affect those people directly.”
The SADC states said they were against any uplisting of species “which is not science-based and does not take into account the needs of the affected parties and communities,” a reference to the proposal by West Africa to upgrade the listing of regional elephants.
For the region and its allies, the upcoming week is crucial, as the proposal for upgrading elephants to Appendix I is due, together with the finalisation of debates on communities, ivory stockpile sales, and the voting rule changes.