Botswana jumbos rumble into Zambia, destroy crops

| Friday April 16, 2010 00:00

Several elephants have entered Zambia through Sesheke, a town that borders with Namibia  and Botswana. The animals are posing a threat to human habitation, Sesheke Member of Parliament (MP) Adonisi Mufarari has said.   

The law-maker appealed to Zambia wildlife authority, a government wildlife agency, to assist by rescuing the people from the marauding elephants and averting hunger among those whose crops were affected.     The CITES conference held recently in Doha, Qatar, from March 13 to 22, rejected requests from Zambia and Tanzania to hold one-off sales of their ivory stockpiles.

Governments participating at the United Nations Convention on the International  Trade on Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES) rejected  proposals by Tanzania and Zambia to relax trade restrictions on their  elephant populations by moving them from Appendix I-the highest  level of protection under the Convention banning all international commercial  trade-to Appendix II. 

The two countries had also initially asked for permission to hold a one-off sale of their ivory stockpiles. No commercial ivory sale is permitted if elephants remain in  Appendix I, but are possible with the Appendix II listing, which allows  for some regulated international commercial trade. 

But neither country was given permission to sell their ivory or relax trade controls on their elephant populations, according  to official data. Governments rejected Tanzania's downlisting and ivory sales request. 

They also voted against Zambia's request to move their elephant populations off Appendix I - a decision, which came despite an amendment by Zambia  to remove the request for a one-off sale of their ivory stockpiles from  their original proposal.

 While the issue of whether sales should be allowed to proceed or  not has dominated much of the discussions here in Qatar, WWF and TRAFFIC  believe the key driving force behind the ongoing elephant poaching is  the continued existence of illegal domestic ivory markets across parts  of Africa and Asia, said Steven Broad, Executive Director of TRAFFIC,  the wildlife trade monitoring network of WWF and International Union  for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) during the conference.  The Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS) was also formally presented to delegates at the meeting.  The report found that the illicit trade in ivory, which has been increasing in volume since 2004, moved sharply upward in 2009 and there continues  to be a highly significant correlation between large-scale domestic  ivory markets in Asia and Africa and poor law enforcement, suggesting  that illicit ivory trade flows typically follow a path to destinations  where law enforcement is weak and markets function with little regulatory  impediment. 

'Poaching and illegal ivory markets in central and western Africa must be effectively suppressed before any further ivory sales take place,'  said Elisabeth McLellan, Species Programme Manager, WWF International. 

ETIS, one of the two monitoring systems for elephants under CITES, but  managed by TRAFFIC, comprises the world's largest collection of elephant  product seizure records.

The latest analysis is based upon 14,364 elephant  product seizure records from 85 countries or territories since 1989.  (Sila Press Agency)