Threats: Kenya burnt ivory in 2016 , and the country wants the non-commercial disposal of ivory stockpiles. (Kenya Wildlife Service)
Bringing the global shark fin trade under regulation, protecting little-known sea cucumbers from an exploding demand for their meat and clamping down on the illegal trade in hippos being killed for their teeth and tusks: these are some of the proposals on the table at the 19th Conference of the Parties (COP19) to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites), which takes place from 14 to 25 November in Panama.
More than 2 000 delegates will debate 52 proposals that will affect regulations on the international trade of more than 600 species.
Cites is an international agreement that regulates trade in about 40 000 animals and plants that are listed in its three appendices.
Appendix 1: Species at risk of extinction; trade is allowed only under exceptional circumstances.
Appendix II: Species not threatened with extinction, but for which trade might affect their survival.
Appendix III: Species protected in at least one country, which has requested other Cites parties for help in controlling trade.
“Once again some of Africa’s megafauna top the agenda with proposals on the trade in hippo, rhino and elephant products,” said the African Wildlife Economy Institute at Stellenbosch University.
“There are also a number of other African species on the agenda, including a helmeted gecko that lives on the coast of western North Africa, guitarfishes found in shallow waters around the continent, and seven species of wild African mahogany found across sub-Saharan Africa.”
Ivory trade
Zimbabwe is proposing amendments that would allow it, together with Botswana, Namibia and South Africa — home to about 265 000 elephants — to trade in ivory from government stockpiles. The proposal is framed around the funding difficulties faced by most state agencies responsible for elephant conservation in Africa.
The proponents regard Cites as an inhibitor and not an enabler of progress towards the continued protection of large African elephant populations, and that Cites decisions removes, rather than creates, incentives for conservation.
“The proponents furthermore reflect on the lack of scientific evidence to support the view that a complete ban on ivory trade results in elephant population recovery,” said the Cites secretariat in its assessment of proposals to amend appendices I and II.
Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe’s elephant populations are secure and expanding, said Zimbabwe’s proposal.
“The potential risks of increased poaching or illegal trade in ivory associated with a legal trade in registered government-owned raw ivory stocks, or measures to address these risks, are not elaborated upon in the supporting statement,” Cites said, describing how with the recent closure of domestic markets in Asia, “it’s not clear which country or country might be a possible trading partner”.
Mary Rice, the executive director of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), who leads its elephant campaign, said that in light of the international trade bans in rhino horn and ivory, the proposals to resume international trade undermine the intensive efforts made by source, transit and consumer markets to tackle illegal trade.
One-off sales in ivory in 2008 “saw the biggest spike in illegal trade”, she said. “Legal markets simply provide a laundering mechanism for illegal ivory as well as sustaining and stimulating a market for products from species, which are finite and irreplaceable.”
Meanwhile, Burkina Faso, Equatorial Guinea, Mali, Senegal and Syria are proposing that all African elephants, including Southern Africa’s populations, be listed on Appendix 1. Ten African countries have proposed the destruction of national ivory stockpiles while another proposal by Kenya wants to establish a fund for the non-commercial disposal of ivory stockpiles.
Rhino trade
Botswana and Namibia are proposing to move Namibian white rhinos from Appendix I to Appendix II, while eSwatini is requesting that its rhinos are down-listed to Appendix II to enable “regulated legal trade in eSwatini’s white rhinos [and] products”.
“Unlike Namibia, the country is not active in the markets for live sales or hunting trophies, and thus wants to secure benefits from the sale of horn and other rhino parts,” said Francois Vorheis, the director of the African Wildlife Economy Institute.
“Will Botswana, Namibia and eSwatini be supported by the other African countries or by enough other countries to remove some of the non-tariff barriers to trade in rhino products? If Namibian rhinos are moved to Appendix II but not eSwatini rhinos, will this be a step towards possible further trade liberalisation at the next COP?”
Taylor Trench, senior wildlife policy analyst at the EIA, said poaching and illegal trade to meet consumer demand for rhino horn continue to be the main threats to the survival of Africa’s rhinos.
“White rhinos in particular have experienced severe declines over the past decade and overturning the Cites ban on international trade in rhino horn would serve only to increase demand, lead to more poaching, undermine demand reduction and enforcement actions. We are hopeful that Cites parties will reject the proposal from eSwatini as they have at the two previous Cites COPs in 2019 and 2016.”
Trench said Namibia has made good progress to increase its population of Namibian white rhinos, but it is still relatively small at about 1 200 individuals and remains threatened by poaching and rhino horn trafficking.
“Rhino poaching has actually increased in Namibia this year compared to the previous two years. Now is simply not the time to weaken Cites protection for rhinos,” said Trench.
Hippo trade
Benin, Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Gabon, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo want hippos to be moved from Appendix II to Appendix I. They argue that legal international trade in hippo parts and products such as teeth and tusks is having a detrimental effect on hippos by providing an avenue to market illegally acquired specimens from poached hippos into trade.
An analysis of COP19 proposals by Traffic and the International Union for Conservation of Nature notes that hippos don’t have a restricted range or a small population. This means they are present in Eastern and Southern Africa. They also don’t appear to have decreasing numbers. They would not therefore appear to meet the biological criteria for inclusion in Appendix I.
“Hippo products, mainly teeth and tusks, are in legal and illegal trade, predominantly from Uganda and Tanzania; this trade is not considered a significant threat to the species as this trade has remained stable or declined over the last 10 years.”
Shark fins are drying on the roof of a Hong Kong factory. But 70% of species in trade are threatened with extinction. (Antony Dickson/AFP)
Shark trade
Every year 100 million sharks are killed in commercial fisheries, and only 25% of the global trade is regulated, Cites said. “Action is long overdue — 70% of species in trade are already threatened with extinction.”
Panama is leading a globally supported Cites-listing effort to bring most of the global shark fin trade under regulation. Conservationists say the requiem and hammerhead shark proposals are a priority.
Markus Burgener, a senior fisheries specialist at Traffic, said, “If you look at the stats and the number of shark species whose conservation status is threatened, sharks are not in a good place.”
Cites has played an increasing role in shark protection in commercial fisheries. “Compared to 10 years ago, there were a few sharks listed in the Cites appendices, but they were not commercially targeted species,” Burgener said, explaining how about eight years ago commercially caught shark species started to become listed on Cites.
“There’s a real mix of fisheries that catch sharks, some of them it’s targeted, but many other fisheries around the world are not actually targeting sharks, they’re targeting tuna predominantly,” he said, adding that sharks are caught as bycatch in fisheries in South Africa.
“Even if you were to take away the fin trade completely, even if that were to stop, millions of sharks would still be caught every year. There would still be a market for the meat.”
He said the global ban on finning in fisheries, while hard to implement, “is one of the best things that has happened”.
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