Mafaniso Hara
WHAT are the prospects for the ban on the trade in ivory from the African elephant being lifted at next month’s Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species? The prospects would seem to rest on the following possibilities: a majority of African states and other parties to the convention agreeing that the ban should be lifted; whether the convention can agree on split-listing of elephant groups; the major consumer countries entering reservations against the ban; and most of all, whether North American and European animal rights groups feel that the world should officially resume trade in ivory again.
Apparently most African states and other parties to the convention are still opposed to lifting the ban. Fears about the slaughter of elephants for ivory have been intensified by the discovery last year of more than 250 elephants massacred in the northern part of the Congo, whose tusks had been removed. It is feared that people have started collecting ivory in anticipation of the ban being lifted.
Split-listing of elephant groups, into appendix II for those from Southern African countries proposing lifting the ban, and appendix I for the rest, is not likely to receive much sympathy, as the reason it was previously rejected (the problem of distinguishing between legal and illegal ivory) is still valid.
The report of the panel of experts sent to investigate the population status, enforcement capabilities and trade controls of the three countries proposing lifting the ban does not augur well for the prospects either.
The panel’s report on Zimbabwe states that ivory shipments totalling as much as 10 tons had been illegally exported from Zimbabwe in 1996. There is doubt, therefore, whether customs arrangements in these countries would be adequate to control the illegal traffic in ivory. The United States and Japan were the major consumer countries until the ban. Apparently both governments sympathise with the position of the Southern African states.
Even if this is true, it is doubtful whether the two governments would be willing openly to support lifting the ban. For one thing, the price of ivory products in the West has apparently decreased precipitously in recent years due to changing values. Western countries have no domestic reason, therefore, to resume the importation of ivory. In fact, they are under pressure from animal rights groups to maintain the ban.
The price for taking on animal rights groups can be very high, because of these groups’ influence on public opinion. Western governments thus tend to be wary of them.
Japan especially has been fighting a bruising battle since 1982, without much success, to have the moratorium on whaling lifted. Its principal opponents have been the same Western animal rights groups that are ardent supporters of the ivory trade ban. It is unlikely that Japan would want to risk opening another battle-front on the ivory issue.
Western governments are unlikely to risk losing political capital over the ivory issue. The balance of power seems to be with animal rights and environmental groups. In developed countries, environmental awareness has become a major concern in public life. Driving this change in perception are many ardent, committed, direct action environmental groups.
On issues which the groups feel strongly about, they can be adamant and intolerant. They are usually willing to take any action to reach their goal. They lobby to change the positions of their governments. They do not trust governments to do the right thing alone. Thus they take direct action with foreign governments, non-governmental organisations, corporations, individual citizens and by attending the conventions and actively lobbying the delegates. To them, killing elephants is a moral issue.
It cannot be economically or scientifically justified. Allied to the African range states opposing the lifting of the ban are a coalition of US and European animal rights and environmental groups called the ”species survival network”, who have so far persuaded the convention parties that the conditions for lifting the ban have not yet been met.
In his latest book on the subject, John Hoyt, president of Humane Society International, concludes that ”after all that has happened to the elephant, the ivory trade must be kept closed no matter what the cost”. If his views are anything to go by, then the Southern African states fighting to have the ban lifted face a daunting task.
Mafaniso Hara is a research fellow at the Centre for Southern African Studies, University of the Western Cape