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UNITED STATES OFFERS ALTERNATIVE
PROPOSAL IN DEBATE OVER IVORY SALES
The United States today offered an alternative proposal in the debate over allowing southern African states to sell their ivory stocks under the provisions of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES).
Botswana has proposed a one-time sale of ivory in 2004 followed by annual sales according to a quota. In offering its amendment, the United States narrowed the proposal to eliminate the annual sales and postpone the one-time sale until at least 2005.
Before the one-time sale would be allowed, the United States wants to assure that importing and exporting countries improve the law enforcement and control of domestic ivory markets.
The United States also wants to ensure that the sale does not undermine current efforts to establish a population baseline and monitor elephant populations under the five-year-old Monitoring of Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) program.
"The United States is committed to the conservation of African and Asian elephants," said Assistant Secretary of the Interior Craig Manson, one of the two leaders of the U.S. delegation. "We believe this alternative proposal recognizes the progress south African nations have made in conserving and restoring their elephant populations while ensuring that any trade will not lead to an increase in poaching of elephants."
Under the proposal, the CITES Standing Committee would let the one-time sale go forward after its 50th meeting in 2005 unless it:
- Has determined that MIKE is not adequately operational and reporting baseline data (e.g. elephant population numbers, incidence of illegal killing) across both Loxodona africana and Elephus maximus.
- Has not certified that domestic controls and national legislation of prospective importing countries.
- Has determined that Botswana and the major importing states have not developed an adequate law enforcement coordination effort to reduce significantly the illegal trade in elephant ivory.
The member nations of CITES banned international trade in ivory and elephant products in 1989 after widespread poaching had devastated elephant populations throughout Africa and Asia. In 1997, the nations voted to allow Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe to undertake a one-time sale of their existing ivory stocks.
This year Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe proposed to allow sale of their existing stocks of ivory as well as future trade in ivory and other elephant products, such as hides, leather goods, and ivory carvings under an annual quota. The Botswana proposal is the first to be considered by the Conference of Parties.
The countries argued that, because of their successful conservation efforts, elephant populations have recovered to the point where they are beginning to overcrowd their habitat and need to be culled, especially to protect local communities from human-elephant conflicts. Sale of ivory stocks, which largely come from elephants that have died naturally, could finance better management of their herds and promote the species' long-term conservation, they contended.
Meanwhile, Zambia asked that its elephant population be downlisted from Appendix I of the convention, which bars commercial trade, to the less-restrictive Appendix II, allowing it to sell ivory stocks. This proposal will be taken up later in the week.
Other African nations, led by Kenya and joined by India, strongly disagreed, arguing that any resumption in ivory sales would revive the ivory industry and lead to the widespread poaching that decimated herds in the 1980s. Elephants have far more economic value in drawing tourists to African countries than they do in providing ivory for sale, these nations contended.
Meanwhile, Zambia proposed to downlist its population from Appendix I to Appendix II and to allow sale of tusks owned by Zambia's Wildlife Authority and sales of live animals under special circumstances, with the revenue going for conservation. Kenya and India have proposed to transfer all African elephant populations listed in Appendix II to Appendix I.
The United States has long been one of the world's major supporters of African and Asian elephant conservation. With the passage by the U.S. Congress of the African Elephant Conservation Act and the Asian Elephant Conservation Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has provided millions of dollars in cost-share grants to nations in Africa and Southern and Southeast Asia.
For example, the United States provided grants to Botswana last year to conduct research on elephants, manage populations, and reduce elephant-human conflict. In Kenya, grants helped fund purchase of equipment for game rangers to combat poaching, including support for aircraft that are vitally important to locating and tracking poachers. In Gabon, grants provided start-up funds for Langoue National Park, which provides important habitat for elephants.
Likewise, grants from the United States helped fund projects to conserve Asian elephants including construction of electric fences to keep elephants out of farmers' fields in India, designation and management of an area to conserve 1,000 elephants in Borneo, and development of model training programs in wildlife law enforcement, monitoring and environmental education in Thailand.
In addition, the United States is a major backer of international law enforcement and elephant monitoring efforts. Support for the multinational Lusaka Agreement Task Force has led to significant arrests of ivory smugglers, including the confiscation of 6 tons of illegal ivory in Singapore earlier this year.
The United States also has contributed nearly $700,000 to support the Monitoring of Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) program, an international effort to monitor elephant populations and assess the impact of poaching.
"The successful conservation of elephants by southern African nations, which has been strongly supported by the United States, is a major reason we can even have this debate about reopening ivory sales," Manson said. "We are committed to ensuring similar recovery of populations throughout the ranges of both African and Asian elephants."
Looking to the future, the United States is a driving force behind the Congo Basin Forest Partnership, a cooperative effort involving 30 governments, international organizations, environmental and business interests to help the countries of the Congo Basin create and manage protected forest areas, such as national parks.
The Congo Basin, contains a quarter of the world's tropical forest and is a region of extraordinary biological richness, including important habitat for elephants, but its forests are being degraded at the rate of 2 million acres every year.
"The partnership could provide conservation of more than 75 million acres of habitat while providing the people of the region with sustainable means of livelihood, stronger institutions, better management of natural resources, and a networks of national parks and substainably managed areas for elephants and other species," said Assistant Secretary of State John Turner, the other leader of the delegation.
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U.S. Department of the Interior | 