Category: Environment

{A little known species driven to the edge of extinction by poaching has gained extra protection at the Cites meeting in South Africa.
}

Pangolins are slow moving, nocturnal creatures found across Asia and Africa but over a million have been taken from the wild in the last decade.

The trade is being driven principally by demand for their scales, which are used in traditional Chinese medicine.

Now the Cites meeting has agreed to ban all trade in eight species of Pangolin.

{{Scales of destruction}}

As the world’s only mammal covered in scales, these species are sometimes known as scaly anteaters.The creatures have very long, sticky tongues.These come in very handy when searching for ants, their favourite food.

However these scales, which the animal uses for protection, are one of the key reasons for their demise.

In traditional Chinese medicine they are dried and roasted and used for a variety of ailments including excessive nervousness, hysterical crying, palsy and to aid lactation.

As well as the scales, the meat of the Pangolin is eaten as bush meat in many parts of Africa and in China it has become something of a delicacy.

The level of illegal trade is astonishing. Between January and September this year, authorities seized more than 18,000 tonnes of Pangolin scales across 19 countries.

The majority of these scales came from African pangolins in Cameroon, Nigeria and Ghana. Experts estimate that each kilogramme of scales requires the killing of three or four animals. It is believed that pangolins make up around 20% of all illegal trade in species.

{{Zero quotas}}

All pangolins are already listed on Appendix II but with a zero quota for Asian species. This has caused major problems say conservationists.

“When pangolins are just in their product forms as scales or meat it’s impossible to tell the Asian ones from the African ones,” said Jeff Flocken from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).

“Up to now all Pangolins were on Appendix II with zero quota trade in the Asian species, but what that allowed was a massive trade in African species and also enabled a whole mechanism for laundering Asian ones as African ones which are legal.”

Here at the Cites meeting, range state countries proposed that four species of African pangolins and four Asian varieties be up-listed to Appendix I meaning that all commercial trade would be stopped and greater protection demanded from law enforcement.

There was widespread support for the move, with few dissenting voices. All over the large hall, stuffed toy pangolins could be seen on desks, indicating sympathy for the plight of this little known species.

Indonesia objected to the up-listing of two Asian species, the Sunda and Chinese pangolins but the conference voted overwhelmingly to include them.

“When pangolins are just in their product forms as scales or meat it’s impossible to tell the Asian ones from the African ones,” said Jeff Flocken from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).

“Up to now all Pangolins were on Appendix II with zero quota trade in the Asian species, but what that allowed was a massive trade in African species and also enabled a whole mechanism for laundering Asian ones as African ones which are legal.”

Here at the Cites meeting, range state countries proposed that four species of African pangolins and four Asian varieties be up-listed to Appendix I meaning that all commercial trade would be stopped and greater protection demanded from law enforcement.

There was widespread support for the move, with few dissenting voices. All over the large hall, stuffed toy pangolins could be seen on desks, indicating sympathy for the plight of this little known species.

Indonesia objected to the up-listing of two Asian species, the Sunda and Chinese pangolins but the conference voted overwhelmingly to include them.

“This is a huge win and rare piece of good news for some of the world’s most trafficked and endangered animals,” said Ginette Hemley from WWF.

“Giving Pangolins full protection under Cites will eliminate any question about legality of trade, making it harder for criminals to traffic them and increasing the consequences for those who do.”

Some objections had been expected about the African species but none materialized and the Conference of the Parties accepted the extra safeguards without a vote.

“Everyone wants this, law enforcement wants this,” said Jeff Flocken from IFAW.

“When they are listed as Appendix I there will be no mistake as to what’s legal or illegal, because they will all be illegal.

“This is a clear message from the world that the pangolins are in dire need of protection and we are going to try and make it happen.”

{Conservation group blames poaching for 20 percent decline in elephant population over last decade.}

Africa’s elephant population has suffered its largest drop in 25 years, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has said, blaming the plummeting numbers on poaching.

Based on 275 estimates from across the continent, a report, released on Sunday by the conservation group, put Africa’s total elephant population at around 415,000, a decline of around 111,000 over the past decade.

It is the first time in 25 years that the group’s African Elephant Status Report has reported a continental decline in numbers, with the IUCN attributing the losses in large part to a sharp rise in poaching, which is mainly done for the animals’ tusks that are sold in the flourishing global ivory trade.

“The surge in poaching for ivory that began approximately a decade ago – the worst that Africa has experienced since the 1970s and 1980s – has been the main driver of the decline,” IUCN said in a statement.

Habitat loss is also increasingly threatening the species, the group said.

IUCN chief Inger Andersen said the numbers showed “the truly alarming plight of the majestic elephant”.

“It is shocking but not surprising that poaching has taken such a dramatic toll on this iconic species,” she said.

The IUCN report was released at the world’s biggest conference on the international wildlife trade, taking place in the South African city of Johannesburg.

WATCH: Who’s killing the elephants?

Thousands of conservationists and government officials are seeking to develop international trade regulations aimed at protecting different endangered species.

A booming illegal wildlife trade has put huge pressure on an existing treaty signed by more than 180 countries – the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

The plight of Africa’s elephants, targeted for their tusks, will be one of the most debated topics at the meeting which will consider several proposals on whether to tighten or ease controls on the trade in ivory.

{The world’s biggest conference on species protection has opened in South Africa amid concern and division over the survival of elephants.}

The Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) will address proposals impacting more than 500 plants and animals.

But elephants are likely to top the bill with countries bitterly divided over the best way to protect the ponderous pachyderms.

The meeting lasts until 5 October.

{{Poaching surge}}

Billed as the largest gathering in the 43-year history of the convention, the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP) will see more than 2,500 delegates from more than 180 countries come together in Johannesburg.

While there are proposals affecting lions, sharks, rhinos, pangolins and dozens of other species, the main focus will be on elephants.

There have been growing international concerns about the surge in poaching for ivory that has seen elephant numbers plummet by 30% in the past seven years.

And while Cites Secretariat has argued that there has been a slowdown in the trend, some new figures released at the meeting cast doubt on this view.

The Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS) is the world’s most comprehensive database on the illicit trade in elephant products. It is managed by Traffic, the wildlife monitoring network, on behalf of Cites.

Speaking to BBC News, Dr Richard Thomas from Traffic said that new information presented at this meeting suggested that what appeared to be a downturn in illegal ivory activities in 2014 might have been a false dawn.

“The indications were that the 2014 figure, it looked like there was a drop, now the 2015 data has been put in there for ivory it is certainly at the level it was in 2012/13 and that’s very disheartening,” he said.

“We don’t know what it means in terms of poaching but it’s likely to be a fairly simple equation, with high levels of ivory meaning high levels of poaching.”

At this meeting there are a number of proposals reflecting very different approaches to the elephant problem.

Namibia and Zimbabwe are seeking to liberalise the restrictions that see them prevented from selling ivory, even though the elephants in their countries are categorised as Appendix II, a lower level of protection that normally allows countries to trade in a species or its parts.

However, a counter proposal from a number of other African countries seeks to raise all African elephants to Appendix I to ensure there is no legal loophole for any ivory trade.

{{Legacy issues}}

Several conservation groups are backing this tougher stand.

“There is no greater protection for imperilled species from detrimental trade than an Appendix I listing,” said Iris Ho from Humane Society International.

“A continued split-listing of the African elephant is akin to a declaration by Cites to open the ivory trade for business. The conservation legacy of Cites is at stake, and so is the survival of the African elephant.”

Many have also taken issue with the Cites Secretariat, who have advised countries meeting here to reject the up-listing of all African elephants to Appendix I, arguing that it might provoke some nations to opt out of Cites altogether and resume an unsupervised trade.

“The secretariat has over-stepped its powers in trying to influence policy before a proposal has even been discussed,” said Robert Hepworth, a former chair of the Cites Standing Committee and now an adviser to the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation.

There are other underlying factors that bring an added urgency to the discussions here on elephants.

Back in 2007 similar divisions on the issue of elephants ultimately forced a compromise at Cites, where a one-off sale of ivory was allowed in 2008 and all other proposals for sales were off limits until 2017.

“One of the parts of that deal in 2007 was that there would be a process devised, a mechanism would be established, to sell ivory and that hasn’t happened,” said Dr Thomas.

“The countries that signed up to it in the belief that they would be able to trade in the future, they don’t want to see that part of the deal fall through.”

{Pitiful scenes of cheetah cubs lying emaciated and bewildered highlight one of the cruellest but least-publicised examples of illegal wildlife trafficking.}

Baby cheetahs are so prized as exotic pets that entire litters are seized from their mothers when they may only be four to six weeks old.

Each tiny animal can fetch as much as $10,000 on the black market and end up being paraded on social media by wealthy buyers in Gulf states.

But the trade exacts a terrible toll on a species that claims a superlative status as the fastest land animal on the planet but which now faces a serious threat to its survival.
According to the Cheetah Conservation Fund, some 1,200 cheetah cubs are known to have been trafficked out of Africa over the past 10 years but a shocking 85% of them died during the journey.

Dr Laurie Marker, the trust’s director, describes the horrific conditions involved in shipping the animals from their habitats in northern Kenya, Somaliland and Ethiopia by land and sea to the Arabian Gulf.

“They’re probably just thrown into a crate, living in their own faeces, travelling for days without proper food, and many of them end up dead on arrival at wherever that place would be, and maybe one or two living out of a pile that are dead.”

And those that do make it into the hands of new owners usually die rapidly because they are denied the chance to exercise and are given an inadequate diet.

Dr Marker says that they’re often kept in “chicken coop-sized pens” which are far too small for them.

“And this is an animal that is the fastest land animal that is used to living in huge home ranges of 800 sq km. Most of those cheetahs don’t make it over a two-year period of time in captivity.”

With the total of adult cheetahs living in the wild now numbering less than 7,000, the concern is that seizures of an estimated 200-300 a year could drive some of the remaining populations, which are already diminished, to extinction.

The poaching comes on top of the long-running destruction of the cheetahs’ habitats. The animals tend not to thrive in the confines of national parks where other predators dominate, so they live outside protected areas and are more exposed to conflict with people.

The threat to the cheetah will be raised at the CITES COP17 conference being held in Johannesburg over the next fortnight.

One criticism of the conservation movement is that it has recently been doing a better job highlighting the plight of the giants of African wildlife, the elephants and the rhinos, compared with other iconic species whose existence is equally at risk.

As a vet working in Kuwait, Jill Mullen saw for herself how easily cheetah cubs were imported despite the existence of controls under the CITES convention.

Now back in the UK, she told me how her surgery would see as many as six cubs in a single day. All of them would be suffering from dehydration, malnutrition and a common virus known as panleukopenia against which the cubs have no immunity.
Usually, only one of the six would survive.

“I would stand on the soapbox to explain to the owners why it was wrong to have these animals as pets, that they’re endangered in the wild, and are not designed to be kept in living rooms and in villas.

“But in the end I had to swallow the feeling that everything was wrong because that was my job.”

Ms Mullen found that most owners did not know about the CITES restrictions or care about them.

“You have the car and the boat but nothing tops having an exotic pet and, if they can buy it, it doesn’t matter about the legality.”

During her time in Kuwait, there was an attempt by the authorities to clamp down, and vets like her were banned from handling cheetahs and other endangered animals. But she believes this drove the trade underground.

On the agenda in Johannesburg is a quest to raise awareness in buyer countries of the dangers the trade poses to the cheetah.

One idea is to persuade internet platforms to join the fight – many carry social media pictures taken by cheetah owners showing off their animals. Others allow dealers to offer cheetah cubs for sale.

Another initiative is to draw up plans for how to handle cheetahs if they are confiscated – if the authorities do get tough, large numbers may suddenly need to be housed.

Already when cheetahs become too big, or their owners find that they cannot care for them, the animals are released into the streets and found dead or weakened.

But there is a sense that time is not on the side of a species whose very fame may be the cause of its demise.

As Dr Marker puts it, “the cheetah is running the most important race of its life, and that’s for its very survival and its survival is in human hands”.

{The UN body that oversees trade in endangered species, says it will oppose efforts to increase global protection for elephants.}

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, known as Cites, begins a key meeting this weekend with many African countries are pushing for stronger safeguards for elephants.

It’s estimated that around 20,000 are killed each year for their tusks.

But Cites says that tougher rules could backfire and boost the trade in ivory.

{{Global oversight}}

Every three years, teams of officials from all the member states meet for the Cites Conference of the Parties (COP).

This is the major decision making body for the UN organisation that regulates trade in endangered species of flora and fauna for 183 members.

Cites works by classifying these species into one of three appendices with different levels of protection and different rules on trade. A more in-depth guide on the organisation’s background, working methods and impact can be found here.

This year’s meeting in Johannesburg will consider dozens of proposals on regulating the trade in everything from tiny frogs to sharks, to trees and flowers as well as the more high profile threatened species such as rhinos, lions and tigers.

But it is the question of how to deal with the current poaching crisis in elephants that is likely to be top of the bill at this the 17th COP in the Convention’s 43 year history.
The latest research indicates that some 30% of Africa’s elephants have disappeared in the last seven years alone. The current rate of decline is primarily due to poaching for ivory that ends up in China, Thailand, Vietnam and other markets, mainly in the Far East.

Such has been the scale of the poaching in some parts of Africa, that countries like Tanzania and Mozambique have lost half their elephant populations between 2009 and 2015.

But in Uganda and South Africa, populations have grown while they have remained stable or declined by smaller amounts in countries like Zimbabwe.

At present, all African elephants, except those in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia, are listed in Cites Appendix I, meaning that any commercial trade in specimens or parts is banned.

In the southern African states, the animals are listed as Appendix II, meaning that a trade in hunting trophies for non-commercial purposes is allowed, as is a trade in live animals to “appropriate and acceptable destinations.” However their ivory is considered to be in Appendix I and a global ban on legal trade remains in force.

But a coalition of 29 other African countries is pressing for a tightening of the regulations proposing that all elephants on the Continent be listed in Appendix I.

“The evidence for keeping these elephants on Appendix II is entirely lacking,” said Prof Phyllis Lee from the University of Stirling, who is a participant in the Kenyan Elephant Forum, which is pushing for greater protection.

“They have suffered a decline, it is projected to continue and the ivory from those populations is present in the trade, all of those are significant grounds for up-listing to Appendix I under Cites regulations.”

But Cites disagrees and is recommending that the proposals for up-listing be thrown out. They worry that if the resolution is passed, the extra restrictions could see some countries break away from the Convention and resume an unregulated trade.

“There are 90 days for any country to enter a reservation against that decision, that listing to Appendix I,” Cites executive secretary John Scanlon, told BBC News.

“If they enter a reservation, the Convention doesn’t apply to them for that particular species, and if other countries also enter a reservation they can trade with each other outside of the scope of the Convention. So there is a degree of risk associated with that.”

Conservation groups are divided on the question. Many are in favour of the up-listing, saying the lack of clear data from some southern African states makes it uncertain that the populations of these countries are thriving,

Others, such as WWF, agree with the Cites secretariat, saying that there is already a de-facto ban on ivory around the world and putting all the African elephants on the highest level of protection won’t provide any clear benefits and may actually make the situation worse.

“Far from increasing the level of protection, up-listing opens up a loophole window where countries who want to trade can effectively opt out of the treaty as far as elephants are concerned,” said Dr Colman O’Criodain from WWF.

“That would allow them to trade and it could spark off a trade in ivory that isn’t happening right now.

“We also defend the principle of scientific criteria first and they are deemed not to be met in this case. Of course if there weren’t an existing ban on ivory trade, we might feel differently but there is. It’s not the most legally tidy, but it works.”

There is a great deal of uncertainty as to how the elephant issue will play out – neither the proposal to liberalise the market or to increase protection is likely to achieve the two-thirds majority of delegates needed to change the Convention.

There are worries that if the elephant question becomes so divisive, it may disrupt attempts to protect other, less glamorous species such as pangolins and the African Grey parrot.

However, some observers believe that the convention might rally round another proposal to end domestic sales of ivory – something that occurs for antique ivory in many countries including China and the UK and the US.

“There are a number of governments that have done it, there are a number that are doing it,” said Sue Lieberman, from the Wildlife Conservation Society.

“It won’t be legally binding but it will push governments to do it, and that will make a massive difference, bigger than putting them on Appendix I.”