Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 7 • Number 4 • 2nd March 2007
COUNTRIES SET STAGE FOR DEBATE ON SUSTAINABILITY OF TRADE AT CITES CONFERENCE
COUNTRIES SET STAGE FOR DEBATE ON SUSTAINABILITY OF TRADE AT CITES CONFERENCE
The question of whether to allow limited trade in threatened species continues to divide parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). The secretariat recently released proposals to be discussed at the next Conference of the Parties, and country submissions regarding the protection of commercially valuable species in the fisheries and timber trade are on the up.
"Biological diversity faces many threats, ranging from habitat destruction to climate change to unrestrained commercial harvesting for trade. By ensuring that the international trade in wildlife is carefully managed, CITES seeks to reward people engaged in sustainable trade while protecting the world’s biological diversity," UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner commented.
The continuing controversy around limited ivory sales aptly illustrates the underlying tension between those that favour strict conservation and those that support ’sustainable’ trade that allows benefits to flow back to the communities involved in conserving their natural resources. In their proposals, Botswana and Namibia wanted to ease sales of ivory stockpiles in order to help bring revenues to the local populations that help manage and conserve elephant populations. Kenya and Mali took a diametrically opposite view, calling for a 20 year moratorium on any sales of ivory products, which they said would encourage poaching.
A number of Southern African countries claim to have successfully protected their elephant populations, which now are growing to the extent that South Africa is proposing to implement measures to limit fertility or cull elephants. Elephant culls are controversial, with animal right groups decrying their cruelty — entire family groups are killed all at once. Tanzania now joins several other Southern African countries in proposing to de-list its ivory from Annex I (no trade allowed) to Annex II (trade is strictly regulated and based on a permit regime), without requesting quotas for sales at this time.
When the CITES Standing Committee last considered the issue of one-off sales of ivory, it said that monitoring and statistics were not yet in order, and could not recommend sales of ivory stockpiles (see Bridges Trade BioRes, 20 October 2006, http://www.ictsd.org/biores/06-10-20/story1.htm).
The CITES Conference of the Parties, which meets every three years, is set to take place in The Hague from 3-15 June this year.
Additional resources
Country proposals for the upcoming CITES meeting http://www.cites.org/eng/cop/14/prop/index.shtml
2007 IUCN statistics on African elephant populations http://iucn.org/themes/ssc/sgs/afesg/aed/aesr2007.html
"New Curbs Proposed on Trade in Endangered Species," REUTERS, 1 March 2007; "Governments to consider new CITES trade controls for high-value marine and timber species," CITES RELEASE, 28 February 2007; "South Africa Says May Resume Elephant Cull," REUTERS, 1 March 2007.