tagged w/ Ivory
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Daily Mail...
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Unimaginable horror as helicopter-borne poachers massacre 22 elephants before hacking off their tusks and genitals
Record numbers of ivory seizures amid rise of organised crime gangs
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Barbaric: In a scene too graphic to show in full, the carcasses of some of the 22 massacred elephants lay strewn across Garamba National Park in the Congo after being gunned down by helicopter-borne poachers
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By Simon Tomlinson
PUBLISHED: 17:35 EST, 24 April 2012 | UPDATED: 17:53 EST, 24 April 2012
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In a scene of inconceivable horror, these slaughtered elephant carcasses show the barbaric lengths poachers will go to in their hunt for nature's grim booty.
The bodies were among a herd of 22 animals massacred in a helicopter-borne attack by professionals who swooped over their quarry.
The scene beneath the rotor blades would have been chilling - panicked mothers shielding their young, hair-raising screeches and a mad scramble through the blood-stained bush as bullets rained down from the sky.
When the shooting was over, all of the herd lay dead, one of the worst such killings in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo in living memory.
'It's been a long time since we've seen something like this,' said Dr Tshibasu Muamba, head of international cooperation for the Congolese state conservation agency, ICCN, as he surveyed the macarbre scene at Garamba National Park.
After the slaughter, the killers set about removing their tusks and genitals before likely smuggling them through South Sudan or Uganda, which form part of an 'Ivory Road' linking Africa to Asia.
Elephant and rhino poaching is surging, conservationists say, an illegal piece of Asia's scramble for African resources, driven by the growing purchasing power of the region's newly affluent classes.
When the shooting was over, all of the herd lay dead, one of the worst such killings in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo in living memory.
'It's been a long time since we've seen something like this,' said Dr Tshibasu Muamba, head of international cooperation for the Congolese state conservation agency, ICCN, as he surveyed the macarbre scene at Garamba National Park.
After the slaughter, the killers set about removing their tusks and genitals before likely smuggling them through South Sudan or Uganda, which form part of an 'Ivory Road' linking Africa to Asia.
Elephant and rhino poaching is surging, conservationists say, an illegal piece of Asia's scramble for African resources, driven by the growing purchasing power of the region's newly affluent classes.
A record number of big ivory seizures were made globally in 2011 and the trend looks set to continue in 2012 as elephant massacres take place from Congo to Cameroon, where as many as 200 of the pachyderms, listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as 'vulnerable', were slain in January.
In South Africa, nearly two rhinos a day are being killed to meet demand for the animal's horn, which is worth more than its weight in gold. More are being killed each week now than were being taken on an annual basis a decade ago.
Conservation group TRAFFIC, which monitors the global trade in animals and plants, said 2011 was the worst year for large ivory seizures in the more than two decades it has been running a database tracking the trends.
After the trade in ivory was banned at the end of the 1980s - a policy implemented to stem a slaughter of elephants at the time - the illegal trade declined sharply, helped by the co-operation of Japan from where most of the demand had been coming.
Conservationists say there was a spike in the mid 1990s driven by emerging Chinese demand that bubbled for a few years, then dropped off as red flags were raised.
Zimbabwe-based Tom Milliken, who manages TRAFFIC's Elephant Trade Information System, said since 2004 'the trend has been escalating upwards again, dramatically so over the last three years.'
Ben Janse van Rensburg, head of enforcement for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the international treaty that governs trade in plants and animals, said: 'The biggest challenge is that in the last few years there has been a big shift from your ordinary poachers to your organized crime groups.'
This was on display in Congo last month, where investigators determined the poachers shot from the air because of the trajectory of the bullet wounds.
Helicopters do not come cheaply and their use points to a high level of organization.
Ken Maggs, the head of the environmental crimes investigation unit for South African National Parks, said one person recently arrested for trade in rhino horn had 5.1 million rand ($652,400) in cash in the boot of his car.
South Africa is the epicenter of rhino poaching because it hosts virtually the entire population of white rhino - 18,800 head or 93 per cent - and about 40 per cent of Africa's much rarer black rhino.
As of the middle of April, 181 rhinos had been killed in South Africa in 2012, according to official government data.
At this rate, more than 600 will be lost to poachers this year compared with 448 in 2011.
A decade ago, only a handful were being taken.
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Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2134696/Scene-unimaginable-horror-helicopter-borne-poachers-massacre-22-elephants.html#ixzz1tbKCGg2f
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Unimaginable horror as helicopter-borne poachers massacre... more
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The Telegraph...
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Rhino poaching: 'These animals are all too easy to kill’
A close friend of Prince William talks of the senseless slaughter of a favourite rhinoceros.
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Proud beast: Max the rhino on the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya Photo:
TEEKU PATEL/WWW.SOKOMOTO.COM
By Victoria Moore
7:00AM GMT 01 Mar 2012
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It’s a terribly patchy mobile telephone connection to northern Kenya when I speak to Ian Craig. We’re shouting and repeating ourselves, whole sentences vanishing frustratingly into the ether as I try to talk to the conservationist about the brutal murder by poachers of a very special and rather famous white rhinoceros called Max.
The Duke of Cambridge has said he is “appalled” by the animal’s “senseless slaughter”. As a close friend of Craig and his daughter Jecca, with whom he was once linked romantically, he has been a regular visitor to the family’s Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya where Max was hand-raised. He would have seen the rhino as it was growing up.
The Prince takes a keen interest in the plight of these animals, which are at ever-increasing risk from the poachers who sell their horns for more than the price of gold. They need protection and on a recent visit, he agreed to sponsor a black hook-lipped rhino at a cost of £6,000 a year. The beast was named William in his honour.
“Rhino are so vulnerable,” says Craig. “They have bad eyesight. They’re all too easy to kill.”
Then suddenly the line is crystal clear, as if it’s being held together by the great force of his wrath. I can hear every word he says.
“How do I feel about yet another rhino being killed by poachers who only want to sell its horn?” says Craig. “It’s such a massive, deep anger. That we have failed to protect these animals. And that the world can have such a demand for something that in real terms is just worthless. The value of rhino horn, which is thought in some cultures to have medicinal properties, is founded on myth. The case of Max highlights the fate of so many other rhino. It’s important that the world sees what’s going on because it’s very real. We need to do more about it.”
Rhino horn can be traded illegally for up to £60,000 a kilogram in some Asian countries, where it is renowned for its supposed therapeutic benefits. Over the past few years, its rising value has created a surge in poaching incidents. In 2007 in South Africa, where the rhino population is closely monitored, the number of rhinos poached was just 13. The following year it was 83; then up to 333 in 2010.
But, as Craig points out, this is not a South African but a “pan-African” problem.
Conservation has long been his passion. Kenyan-born, he converted the family cattle ranch into a rhino sanctuary back in the Eighties and went on to found the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in 1995.
In 2001, Prince William spent six weeks working at Lewa as a volunteer and has returned on several occasions since, even becoming a patron of the Tusk Trust [a conservation and community development organisation] after being inspired by Craig’s work.
Kenya is certainly a country close to the Prince’s heart; it was there that in 2010 he took Kate on the romantic holiday in the wilds during which he asked her to be his wife. And it was with the Craigs at the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy that the couple enjoyed their first, very informal, celebratory drinks after the Prince had proposed.
It was to Lewa that Max the rhino came too, as a two-week-old after Craig got a call from an animal sanctuary saying he needed a new home.
“His mother was missing, presumed killed,” says Craig, who was speaking to me yesterday from Northern Kenya where he is helping the charity Save the Elephants treat an injured matriarch called Monsoon. “We flew to pick him up, blindfolded him, put cotton-wool in his ears, and brought him home. He was hand-reared on Lewa by teams of rangers: fed every four hours on lactogen and vitamins, kept warm at night in stables, taken out during the day and walked around. Whether it’s a rhino or a Labrador, you pick up a very close bond with an animal. Max became like a dog. He knew people. He wasn’t aggressive at all.”
When he was two years old Max was moved from Lewa to the Ol Pejeta Conservancy where, in common with other rhinos, he was dehorned in the hope of protecting him from poachers.
Poaching can be highly sophisticated. As the financial stakes have become higher, so the gangs can afford to invest in more equipment, deploying helicopters as well as night-vision goggles in search of their bounty, chainsaws (to remove the horn) and shotguns. It is becoming an increasingly bloody battle between conservationists and poachers, as even the prospect of excavating a few scraps from a rhino that has been dehorned makes an animal a lucrative kill.
This was to be Max’s bloody fate in June 2011 – although news of the death emerged only this week. He was six years old when, at 3 o’clock in the morning, Craig took a phone call to say that gunshots had been heard in the conservancy. Later, Max’s carcass was found lying in the warm mud. He had been shot 17 times and poachers had sliced deep into his face in an attempt to hack out what remained of the precious stumps of his horns, leaving it a grisly mess.
“I didn’t go to see him,” says Craig. “I didn’t want to go near. I put my energies into working with the police to try to apprehend the guys who had done it.”
In Craig’s view, so much more could be done to contain the poaching problem. “The issues for elephants and for rhinos are different and not just because ivory is a luxury product for wealthy people. Elephants are free-ranging animals. It is easier to keep rhino alive in a sanctuary by paying for high levels of security. But it costs a lot.
“Kenya has been relatively successful at protecting its rhino. The number dropped at one stage to 260 and now it is three times that. The government’s been putting a lot of resources into it. But you also have to remember that’s money that could be going into schools or water.
The demand for ivory and rhino horn is coming from outside Africa. It’s a world issue – but Africa is having to pay for the protection.”
And, sadly, not every rhino is lucky enough to have a royal sponsor.
.The Telegraph...
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Rhino poaching: 'These animals are all too easy to... more
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CNN...
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Nearly 300 elephants slain in Cameroon for ivory, government minister confirms
From Tapang Ivo Tanku, for CNN
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updated 7:21 PM EST, Mon February 20, 2012
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The government in Cameroon has launched a crackdown on poachers who have been killing elephants for their tusks.
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STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Poachers are killing the elephants for their tusks
The ivory is smuggled to markets in Asia and Europe, an animal welfare official says
Money from ivory sales buys arms for use in regional conflicts, the official says
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(CNN) -- Poachers in search of ivory in northern Cameroon have slaughtered nearly 300 elephants for their tusks since mid-January, according to the country's minister of forestry and wildlife.
Minister Ngole Philip Ngwese backed up a claim by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) that an armed gang of Sudanese poachers had killed the free-roaming elephants in the Bouba Ndjida National Park, on Cameroon's border with Chad.
Park officials say many orphaned elephant calves have been spotted, and concerns are high the babies may soon die of hunger and thirst.
One park official, Bouba Jadi, told CNN the deaths are worsening the situation for Cameroon's already threatened elephant populations. According to official estimates, there are between 1,000 and 5,000 elephants in Cameroon.
Officials on a tour Monday saw at least 100 elephant carcasses. More carcasses are expected to be found in unexplored regions of the national park. A massive crackdown on poachers has been launched, according to officials in the west Central African nation.
"It was common for armed gangs of poachers to cross from Sudan during the dry season to kill elephants for their ivory. But this latest massacre is massive and has no comparison to those of the preceding years," IFAW official Celine Sissler Bienvenu told a local newspaper, The Voice.
She added that the ivory is smuggled out of West and Central Africa for markets in Asia and Europe, and money from ivory sales funds arms purchases for use in regional conflicts, particularly ongoing unrest in Sudan and in the Central African Republic.
Cameroon shares a porous border with Chad. Armed insurgents from Sudan and the Central African Republic seeking elephants frequently travel through Chad.
Observers in Cameroon have been blaming the raids on poorly trained and ill-equipped park guards, who are pitted against professional gangs of poachers.
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Nearly 300 elephants slain in Cameroon for ivory, government minister... more
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The New York Times
December 19, 2010
As Incomes Rise, So Does Animal Trade
By BETTINA WASSENER
HONG KONG — Four suitcases full of ivory, intercepted by customs at Suvarnabhumi International Airport near Bangkok. Rare tortoises, openly for sale at a fair in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital. More than 2,000 frozen pangolins — scaly anteaters — seized from a fishing vessel off China.
Oh, and a 2-month-old tiger cub, alive but sedated, found inside a suitcase, also at the Bangkok airport.
If you think all of this sounds like old news — didn’t we see this in the 1970s and ’80s? — think again.
Every one of these incidents, documented by Traffic, the wildlife trade monitoring network, took place within the past few months. They provide just a glimpse of the massive trade in endangered animals — and their bones, skins and other organs — that is taking place across Asia.
And they illustrate that half a century’s worth of efforts by governments, international organizations and conservationists have failed to stem wildlife trade and the extinction of numerous animals and plants.
Yes, conservation projects have helped preserve individual species, but over all the trade in rare creatures has grown, not shrunk — thanks largely to rising demand from an increasingly affluent Asia.
“I’ve been doing this job for close to 20 years,” said Chris R. Shepherd, who helps oversee Traffic’s Southeast Asia operations, “and I can say it’s never been anywhere near as bad as it is now.”
In the 1970s, when international conservation efforts began to take off, the issue was one of largely niche demand from wealthy consumers in the West. Now, however, the picture has changed radically.
Rapid growth across developing Asia over the past decade or two has caused wealth to increase quickly across much of the region. Credit Suisse, in a recent study, estimated that parts of Asia, including China, India and Indonesia, have seen the average wealth per adult soar between 100 percent and 400 percent since 2000.
Along with many of its neighbors, China is now a giant consumer of items like machinery, cars, washing powder, clothes and — yes — python-skin handbags and tiger penises, bear bile and other ingredients for traditional medicines or meals that once belonged to the aristocracy.
“Over the past 20 years, the nature of the demand has changed, thanks to a rising middle class in Asia,” said Colman O’Criodain, a wildlife trade policy analyst in Switzerland for the environmental group W.W.F. International.
James Compton, senior program director for Asia at Traffic, said from Beijing, “Whether it’s high-end luxury stores or the man on the street corner selling dried sea horses — you can see animals and animal parts being sold quite openly. Wildlife trade is now quite pervasive in Asia.”
The problem, experts say, is often not a lack of top-level political will. Many Asian countries, like those elsewhere, ban the trade of rare plants and animals. Rather, the problem is enforcement on the ground and growing demand from populations that are often simply not fully aware of just how endangered the creatures they are consuming are.
Wildlife species with high commercial value have declined drastically, and many are now rare, endangered or even locally extinct, Traffic wrote in a report about Southeast Asia in late 2008.
Figures are hard to come by, as only select species can be closely monitored. But here are a couple of examples to illustrate the scale of some the population declines:
•Some species of sharks are thought to have declined 90 percent. Considered a status symbol in Chinese culture, the soup made from pricey shark fins is now within the reach of many, many more people than it once was.
• There are now thought to be as few as 3,200 tigers left in the wild globally, down from 100,000 a century ago. Despite their acute rarity and international bans on tiger trade, officials throughout most of the tiger range countries, which span Russia and much of Asia, are intercepting the claws, skins or bones of about 100 tigers every year, a report published by Traffic last month found.
On the upside, attitudes are starting to change. Shark’s fin soup, for example, is becoming a decidedly uncool meal to serve in Hong Kong, the main hub for trade in the fins.
And in mainland China, where there was barely any coverage of animal welfare and related topics a decade ago, the media are now engaged, said Jill Robinson, founder of the Animals Asia Foundation, which campaigns for animal welfare and the conservation of endangered animals.
The sale of bear bile — often harvested from animals kept in tiny cages, and used in traditional medicine to cure ailments as varied as headaches and hemorrhoids — is legal in China, and demand is booming. But many doctors are starting to turn away from its use, not least because of a growing realization that bile from bears farmed in such conditions is often diseased, Ms. Robinson said.
Unfortunately, these efforts, commendable though they are, make only a small dent. Unlike in the West, where generations of children have grown up with nature programs, populations in Asia are not yet sensitized to issues like conservation, said Mr. O’Criodain of the W.W.F.
And while some countries have pretty advanced projects for preserving terrestrial species, “most consider the resources of the high seas — including overfished species of fish — as up for grabs,” he added.
Often, said Mr. Compton of Traffic, it is actually the rarity of the animal that makes it attractive to consumers, driving up its price.
For example, in Vietnam, where it is illegal to sell bear bile, a milliliter, or one-fifth of a teaspoon, of fresh, liquid bear bile can fetch as much as $30 on the black market, Animals Asia said.
Such prices mean fines and other penalties are an insufficient deterrent to often impoverished local populations.
“Wildlife crime is becoming more and more organized and sophisticated, and enforcement capacities are not managing to keep up,” said Mr. Shepherd of Traffic.
“The political will is changing; we’re seeing a lot of high-level commitments. But we need to see that translate into action on the ground. Otherwise, it will just be business as usual.”
For some species, even the welcome change in awareness may already simply be too little, too late.The New York Times
December 19, 2010
As Incomes Rise, So Does Animal Trade
By... more
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Photo: For four decades Iain Douglas-Hamilton has been an advocate for elephants, the endangered giants of Africa. Save the Elephants cofounder Iain Douglas-Hamilton has been named the 2010 recipient of the Indianapolis Prize, the world’s leading award for animal conservation. Four decades ago, he pioneered the first in-depth scientific study of elephant social behavior, which revealed their matriarchal society.
The Indianapolis Prize
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The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com
Save the Elephants cofounder Iain Douglas-Hamilton has been named the 2010 recipient of the Indianapolis Prize, the world’s leading award for animal conservation. Four decades ago, he pioneered the first in-depth scientific study of elephant social behavior, which revealed their matriarchal society.
(The Indianapolis Prize)
By Yvonne Zipp, / Correspondent
November 1, 2010 at 9:38 am EDT
When Iain Douglas-Hamilton first started studying elephants in Africa, he had to invent ways of tracking the giant mammals. Over the course of 40-some years in the field, the zoologist learned how to fly airplanes and use radio collars and other high-tech means to follow their movements.
He also learned how to get out of the way – fast. "I learned how to climb trees very quickly," says Dr. Douglas-Hamilton, winner of the 2010 Indianapolis Prize, the largest prize ($100,000) given for animal conservation in the world.
As cofounder of the nonprofit group Save the Elephants, he also has learned to be an activist, author, and politician.
When Douglas-Hamilton left Tanzania, in East Africa, in 1970 to study at Oxford University in Britain, he left behind "an elephants' paradise," he recalls.
But when he returned in 1972, the country's national parks looked more like a war zone. Douglas-Hamilton often found more dead elephants than live ones.
"Never in all our wildest dreams did the small group of scientists who worked in Tanzania's national parks [in the 1960s] imagine that men armed with automatic weapons would one day stride through the national parks. It was just not in our thinking," he says of the heavily armed poachers who had moved in.
The soft-spoken conservationist now lives in Kenya with his wife, Oria, who co-founded Save the Elephants. Together they have written two books, "Battle for the Elephants" and "Among the Elephants."
During the height of the ivory poaching, Douglas-Hamilton rode in small planes wearing one flak jacket and sitting on another as he helped park rangers in Uganda bring back elephants from the brink of extinction. He's been repeatedly shot at and has survived plane crashes, droughts, floods, malaria, and once, being squashed by a rhinoceros.
He campaigned for years for a worldwide ban on ivory sales, which finally took effect in 1989.
His long-term commitment to saving elephants across Africa impressed the prize jury, says Michael Crowther, president and CEO of the Indianapolis Zoo, which administers the prize. Douglas-Hamilton pioneered the first scientific study of elephant social behavior, Mr. Crowther says.
Among his discoveries: Elephants have a matriarchal society and travel in families.
"He has been creative, committed, and consistent," Crowther says. "And he's been courageous – politically courageous and physically courageous."
"He shows bravery ... [and his work is so important," says Laurie Marker, a finalist for the Indianapolis Prize who founded the Cheetah Conservation Fund, based in Namibia. When CCF expanded into Kenya, it began working with Save the Elephants in Samburu National Reserve, in Kenya's Great Rift Valley.
Douglas-Hamilton has given practical assistance to CCF, from making introductions to sharing researchers and resources, Dr. Marker says.
Despite the ivory poaching ban, the future of African elephants is far from secure. Douglas-Hamilton describes the conditions in the Congo, for example, as "catastrophic" – and not just for elephants.
In 2009, he worked to save a rare herd of desert elephants in Mali from the worst drought in more than a decade.
There have been other successes, particularly in East and Southern Africa, whose elephant populations have rebounded since the ivory ban. At this year's Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species meeting in Doha, Qatar, conservationists, including Douglas-Hamilton, defeated an effort by the governments of Tanzania and Zambia to downgrade the status of their elephants so that they could sell off their stockpiles of ivory.
"If there's to be a future for elephants, there has to be an accommodation about how they're going to live in juxtaposition with people," says Douglas-Hamilton, who considers the rapid expansion of human populations one of the largest challenges facing all wildlife. "This is where science and research comes in. It has to be linked to community development."
Elephants "need space," he says, including protected corridors so that they can travel from one protected area to another. (Such corridors would also benefit other large mammals, such as zebras, wild dogs, lions, and giraffes.)
Douglas-Hamilton has proposed the idea of a mobile national park, where the protected land would follow elephants as they travel. No country has yet adopted it.
"I know we're dealing with poor people who have immediate needs," he says. "But we have to escape from the tyranny of poverty in order to have the luxury of long-term planning. If we don't, the poverty is not going to get any better and the environment is going to deteriorate."
He's also thrilled that young African-born conservationists now are joining the effort to save the continent's elephants.
Even after decades of research, Douglas-Hamilton still enjoys the company of these gentle giants, the largest of land mammals.
"I love to sit with them and be with them," he says. "I have the greatest joy just to be with elephants at peace."Photo: For four decades Iain Douglas-Hamilton has been an advocate for elephants, the... more
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Kenya is celebrating the defeat of a proposal by its neighbor Tanzania to sell 90,000 kilograms of Ivory. The proposal was shot down by Convention on International Trade
Congratulations Kenya, now the government can focus on other equally important issues, corruption, impunity, poverty, theft of public funds, education, child rape and exploitation and Esther Arunga, among others.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMnlS9GgqDM&feature=channelKenya is celebrating the defeat of a proposal by its neighbor Tanzania to sell 90,000... more
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Click on picture to see the video.
(CNN) -- Conservationists have welcomed the decision to reject a bid from Tanzania and Zambia to temporarily suspend a worldwide ban on trading in African elephant ivory so they can offload legal stockpiles in a one-off sale.
The 175-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), meeting in Doha, Qatar, on Monday, voted to reject the proposal amid concerns about elephant poaching.
A petition from the two African countries to remove elephants from a list of animals "threatened with extinction" to allow trade in other parts of the animal was also thrown out.
"Poaching and illegal ivory markets in central and western Africa must be effectively suppressed before any further ivory sales take place," said Elisabeth McLellan, of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
"It's welcome news, but my anxieties remain about the increased levels of poaching in Africa," Save the Elephant's Dr. Ian Douglas-Hamilton told CNN.
He said burgeoning ivory markets in countries such as China and Japan would be key battlegrounds in the fight against the illegal trade in future.
"There are huge problems ahead for the elephants," he said. "I do see this huge demand which is emanating mainly from the prosperity of China. We have to win their hearts and minds for conservation and for the elephant so that they have more of an idea of sustainable use and not over-taxing populations."
CITES banned the international commercial ivory trade in 1989 after elephant populations dropped dramatically across the world due to widespread poaching.
But in 1997 and 2002 it permitted Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe to sell limited stocks of ivory to Japan, in recognition of the fact that some southern African elephant populations were healthy and well managed.
Five years later at a CITES meeting at The Hague further sales of stockpiled ivory were permitted in return for a nine-year moratorium on further sales.
Both Zambia and Tanzania claimed elephant numbers in their territories were on the rise after years of decline. They also said the proceeds from the sale of government stockpiles would be put back into conservation and enforcement projects.
Tanzania had asked to sell almost 90,000 kilograms of ivory that would have generated as much as $20 million, according to the CITES Web site, while Zambia looked to offload more than 21,000 kilograms.
But wildlife experts in Kenya, part of a coalition of 23 African elephant range countries calling for an outright ban, say poaching has increased since the announcement of the last sale.
Kenya orphanage takes elephant babies
Video: Kenya's orphaned elephants
"There is no justification for downgrading the elephants from the endangered list.
--Ian Douglas-Hamilton
They argued the illegal trade in ivory has been turned into a lucrative business since poachers can launder their illegal ivory with the legal stockpiles.
"Though Zambia's anti-poaching enforcement measures are better than those of Tanzania, there is no justification for downgrading the elephants from the endangered list," said Douglas-Hamilton, an expert on Kenya's elephant population.
"Tanzania has increased poaching and increased illegal markets. Their main elephant population has decreased by some 30,000 in the last three years.
"In Zambia there were huge declines in the elephant population in the 1970s and 1980s. Whereas other elephant populations across Africa have recovered slightly since the introduction of the ivory trade ban, Zambia's never have. They remain the same.
"In the mid-1970s the population was something like 160,000. It is currently estimated to sit at around 26,000."
He added that the situation was particularly desperate in central Africa where there are estimated to be just 20,000 elephants left from a population numbering 1 million 30 years ago.
Last week, CITES members voted against adding Atlantic bluefin tuna to a list of banned exports.
The popular sushi staple has been the focus of international attention as East Atlantic and Mediterranean populations of the fish have decreased by an estimated nearly 61 percent in the last decade, according to International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT).
CNN's David McKenzie contributed to this report.Click on picture to see the video.
(CNN) -- Conservationists have welcomed the... more
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Reporting from Limpopo Province, South Africa
The baby rhino, an orphan, had barely been weaned. Her horn was only a few inches long. But that didn't stop the poachers from hacking it off.
David Uys, 33, had helped raise the rhino after her mother was killed by lightning. He called her Weerkind -- "orphan" in Afrikaans. He won't forget the sight of the bodies of the baby and two other rhinos, shot dead, their horns removed.
"I'm not a one for talking about emotions," Uys said quietly. "But it was like seeing one of your family members dead, the brutality of it."
The slain bull rhino, dubbed Longhorn, was about 35 and had a magnificent horn more than 2 1/2 feet long. The third rhino, Sister, had adopted Weerkind after her mother was killed. The three died together in November on this Limpopo province game ranch that is for tourists, not hunters, north of Pretoria.
"You're angry. You're furious. You're sad. You're crying," said Uys, the ranch manager. "Just a bundle of emotions, bursting inside."
A sharp surge in poaching in South Africa and Zimbabwe by organized gangs has devastated Zimbabwe's rhino population and threatens to wipe out South Africa's critically endangered black rhinos within a decade. South African rancher Pelham Jones warns that the more common white rhino won't be far behind unless something is done.
A report last year by the World Wildlife Fund, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and wildlife-trade monitoring network TRAFFIC said poaching had reached a 15-year high, pushing the animals close to extinction. About 1,500 rhino horns were traded illegally in the last three years, despite a long-standing ban on international trade.
Last year, 122 rhinos were killed in South Africa. Jones predicted that at the current poaching rate, 180 to 200 will be killed this year. A provisional 2009 estimate shows only 800 rhinos remaining in Zimbabwe, and 18,553 white and 1,570 black rhinos in South Africa, according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, which maintains the ban on the trade of rhino horn.
Rhino ranchers, some of whom keep the animals to attract tourists while others rely on limited trophy hunting, are so wary about the involvement of organized crime in rhino killings that few are willing to talk publicly for fear of endangering animals on their properties. Interviews are given on condition that properties, even nearby towns, are not identified.
The ranch where Weerkind was born and killed is a lush green in the summer rainy season, with rocky hills looming into the sky. Birds with impossibly long tails seem weighed down in flight as they flutter near a pond. A red track cuts uphill through the acacia trees. Rain clouds gather, thunder grumbles, and a sudden drenching rain pours down, stopping abruptly half an hour later.
Up close, the rhinos look benign, almost bovine, ambling in the Limpopo sunshine, plucking grass, shadowed by a group of guards in camouflage carrying semiautomatics. Their small, thick-lashed eyes look sleepily docile. But their sheer size is awesome -- a rhino is almost as big as a car, weighing from 2,000 to 3,000 pounds. From a few yards away, they are terrifying.
Not for Uys, even though he's been charged countless times and once was knocked over and walked on. Afterward, he recalled, the bull looked almost apologetic.
Uys has spent his life with rhinos. At 18, he was a rhino guard, sleeping in the bush with them through violent summer thunderstorms and harsh winter nights.
"I was close enough to scratch their ears. They took me as part of the group."
When he did get charged, it was usually his own fault for getting too close, he says.
"Running away is the worst thing you can do," he said. "You can't outrun a rhino." If there's a tree or boulder, you scramble up. If there's thick enough bush, you stand your ground.
Once, photographing a newborn baby, he and a colleague were suddenly approached by the calf. The two men froze. If the mother saw them and charged, there was no bush, no trees, no boulders.
"They react to movement so if you stand completely still, they won't see you," Uys said. "The guy who was with me, his nerves didn't hold out, and he started running. The cow saw us and she came for us."
There was no time to think.
"I threw down my backpack. She smelled me there and took her fury out on the backpack," he said. It was one of his closest calls.
If you called Uys a rhino whisperer, he'd be offended by the cliche. But he does have a gift with the creatures.
The other day, he crouched low about 20 yards away from a male rhino named Benni, trying to get a look at his slightly injured foot. Another rhino, Bettie, suddenly ambled right up to him. Any sharp move would be disastrous. When she got close enough to nuzzle, he raised his hand. He pressed a fist gently just under her horn. Surprised, she wandered off to graze.
Game rancher Jones, who leads an action group of rhino owners to combat poaching, said incidents are reported every other day.
His phone beeps constantly with text messages alerting him to poaching incidents and sightings of suspected poachers.
"There's another one," he said, grabbing his phone.
The police, he said, are little help. In one recent case, they arrived four days after a group of rhinos was killed. In another, a police officer picked up an ax abandoned by the poachers, destroying any fingerprints.
The South African government disbanded the police force's endangered-species unit in 2003. The government last year promised to bring back a special-investigations unit -- but critics believe it's not enough to make a difference.
"This is our cultural heritage," Jones said. "People come to South Africa to see the Big Five, not the Big Four," he added, a reference to South Africa's five biggest wildlife draws: rhinos, elephants, lions, leopards and cape buffalo.
China's recent thrust into Africa in a rush for resources is a major factor in the illegal rhino horn and ivory trade, analysts believe, because China remains the largest market. Rhino horn, made of keratin, the same substance that forms fingernails, hooves, feathers and hair, has long been used in Chinese medicinal tonics.
Zimbabwe's collapse added to the problem, with corrupt government, army and wildlife officials reportedly involved in poaching and smuggling rhino horn and ivory. The airport in that country's capital, Harare, is reportedly a key transit hub.
In South Africa, Vietnamese diplomatic officials have allegedly been involved in rhino horn buying and smuggling. Reports in Vietnam that a government official was "cured" of cancer by rhino horn appear to have spurred Asian demand.
Many fear that the Asian market is so ancient and entrenched, there's not much a small group of farmers can do to save the species. Some support the idea of rhino farming -- regularly pruning horns, which grow back -- to meet the demand and drive down prices. Others argue that legalizing the trade would only fuel demand, putting the creatures at even more risk. After the killings of the baby rhino and two adults, Uys put his energies into Benni and Bettie. Benni, more unpredictable than Longhorn, sometimes charges unexpectedly. Bettie is docile and sweet. Uys worries about their survival almost as if they were his children, just as he once worried about Weerkind and her family.
"Longhorn and Weerkind and Sister were my passion. But since they have been poached, I have devoted all my time to [Benni and Bettie]. And now I think I love them just as much as I loved the others."
robyn.dixon@latimes.com
How to help: The Endangered Wildlife Trust is working to improve the protection of rhinos in southern Africa.Reporting from Limpopo Province, South Africa
The baby rhino, an orphan, had barely... more
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"Thailand has seized two tons of elephant tusks from Africa hidden in pallets labeled as mobile phone parts in the country's largest ivory seizure.
Thai customs officials valued Wednesday night's haul at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport at 120 million baht ($3.6 million). It is a further sign that Thailand is emerging as a hub for the illicit trade.
Poaching of elephants in central and eastern Africa has intensified in recent years, with much of the illegal ivory exported to Asia...""Thailand has seized two tons of elephant tusks from Africa hidden in pallets... more
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Asian demand for bluefin tuna, sharks' fins and ivory will come under scrutiny when 175 member states of the UN wildlife trade agency meet to consider trade restrictions, according to documents seen by AFP.
Proposals to restrict or ban international trade in those three products are due to be studied when the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) holds its next triennial meeting in Qatar next year.
Monaco has tabled a ban for trade in tuna, while the European Union and the United States have proposed limits on the global trade of several shark species, the documents showed.
Meanwhile, Tanzania and Zambia are asking for a trade embargo on ivory to be lifted, allowing them to sell controlled quantities of elephants' tusks.
The consumption of sharks' fins -- a Chinese culinary delicacy -- is expected to be among key issues on the table at the Qatar meeting, officials said.
The United States and Palau had put in proposals to restrict international trade in white tip sharks and hammerhead sharks, while the European Union has proposed protecting porbeagle sharks, also known as Lamna nasus.
White tips and hammerheads have been "over-exploited" for their fins, said Washington in its submission.
Likewise, the EU warned: "Unsustainable target fisheries for Lamna nasus in parts of its range have been driven by international trade demand for its high value meat."
For environmental group Oceana, the moves marked a "realistic first step" in the promotion of sustainable trade in sharks.
"This could be the turning point for sharks. If countries join together now we can promote the sustainable trade of sharks worldwide," Courtney Sakai, Oceana senior campaign director told AFP.
Oceana also pointed to Monaco's request for a ban in bluefin tuna trade.
"This is the last chance for fisheries managers to show they are competent to manage these magnificent and valuable fish. If they fail, Asia may see its supply cut off, perhaps for years," said Michael Hirshfield, Oceana?s chief scientist.
According to the proposal put to CITES, bluefin tuna stocks are so fragile that the species should be classified as being at threat of extinction.
Monaco argued that tuna spawning stock in the Mediterranean has declined by more than 74 percent between 1957 to 2007, the bulk of it in the last decade.
Tuna stock in the west Atlantic has also plunged by 83 percent between 1970 to 2007, it added.Asian demand for bluefin tuna, sharks' fins and ivory will come under scrutiny... more
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Was the Chesire Cat’s smile real---or really deceptive? What’s in a smile? And those who walk around straight-faced—are they assumed negative or cold? Damn that Mona Lisa. Damn that Julia Roberts! Anyway, here’s a short story about our blogger and her journey to crack a smile.Was the Chesire Cat’s smile real---or really deceptive? What’s in a... more
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JAKARTA, Indonesia -- At least 15 endangered Sumatran elephants have been shot or poisoned to death with cyanide-laced fruit this year, marking a sharp rise in the rate of killing from 2008, a government conservationist said Wednesday.
The giant mammals were mostly killed by poachers for their ivory, said Tony Suhartono, the director of biodiversity conservation at the Forest Ministry.
The number killed in the past six months is equal to the total for the whole of 2008, he said.
"It is shocking," said Syamsidar, a campaigner with the World Wildlife Fund in the western island of Sumatra.
The killing is the result of a "conflict between humans and elephants," said Syamsidar, who like many Indonesians goes by a single name. "The forest is in critical condition due to the illegal logging, slash-and-burn farming practices and plantations."
Indonesia's endangered elephants, tigers, rhinos and orangutans are increasingly threatened by their shrinking habitat in the jungle, which is commonly cleared for commercial farming or felled for lumber. Only 3,000 Sumatran elephants are believed to remain in the wild.
They sometimes venture into inhabited areas searching for food and destroy crops or attack humans, making them unpopular with locals.JAKARTA, Indonesia -- At least 15 endangered Sumatran elephants have been shot or... more
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Zimbabwe’s government, which so far has made no effort to relieve the suffering of it’s starving people, has now resorted to slaughtering the country’s elephants to feed Robert Mugabe’s soldiers.
According to ZimOnline, the state Parks and Wildlife Management Authority has since last week supplied elephant meat to army barracks, which, like the rest of the country, have run out of food. The crippling food shortage has left up to half the nation already facing starvation and in the midst of the cholera crisis has left untold thousands of people dead.
The country’s elephants are now the latest victims in a crisis that the government has refused to accept responsibility for. The Mugabe administration reportedly views the supplying of elephant meat to soldiers as “killing two birds with one stone” as it enables it to cull allegedly excess animals while also ensuring its army has food.
The army is a critical part of Mugabe’s continued grip on power and the soldiers’ comfort has long since taken precedence over that of the people. With no food or goods to plunder in the ravaged country anymore, it is not surprising that hunger is rearing its head in the barracks. Analysts have ruled out the possibility of a military coup against Mugabe because all top commanders are still relatively comfortable. But some say that worsening hunger could at some point force ordinary soldiers to either openly revolt or to simply refuse to defend the government, should Zimbabweans rise up in a civil rebellion.
Meanwhile Defence minister Sydney Sekeramayi has declined to comment on the matter or to discuss the availability of food at army barracks in general, while Parks director-general Morris Mutsambiwa reportedly would not take questions on the matter. It is as of yet unknown how many elephants have been turned into soldier fodder, but it does go without saying that the slaughter is not merely a method of feeding the troops. The ivory collected will undoubtedly be sold off to the country’s dubious Chinese business links, lining the pockets of government officials and further aggravating the illegal ivory trade.Zimbabwe’s government, which so far has made no effort to relieve the suffering... more
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Anderson Cooper 360: Planet in Peril «
Planet in Peril team’s trip to Chad.
Special Correspondent Lisa Ling is in Zakouma National Park in southeastern Chad, to report on the disappearance of the Central African Elephant from the region.Anderson Cooper 360: Planet in Peril «
Planet in Peril team’s trip to... more
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The world's first legal ivory auctions in nearly a decade ended Thursday with four African nations selling more than a hundred tons of tusks to Chinese and Japanese traders for the equivalent of nearly 15 million U.S. dollars.
The money raised during the controversial week of sales will reportedly be used for African elephant conservation.
The auctions took place after South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe were granted a one-time exemption from the 1989 global ban on trade in ivory because of their thriving elephant herds.
The approval came after heated debate within the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES. The move has prompted protests from African nations with dwindling elephant populations as well as animal welfare groups.
"I believe that auctioning the ivory stockpiles would cause poaching to increase particularly in the central, eastern and western African elephant range states where poaching is not yet properly controlled," wrote Kenya-based conservationist and paleontologist Richard Leakey on his blog Wednesday.
"As the hammer falls for the last time in South Africa on Thursday, we cannot in any way say that this is a victory for conservation," Leakey added. "It is indeed a great disservice to conservation."
David Mabunda, chief executive of South African National Parks, saw promise in the recent sales.
"We fully appreciate and embrace our responsibility to ensure that we stamp down on poaching of any kind, and so we intend to use considerable amounts of the funds we raise today toward increasing our antipoaching capacity," Mabundas said.
~National GeographicThe world's first legal ivory auctions in nearly a decade ended Thursday with... more
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Namibia has sold more than seven tonnes of ivory for $1.1m (£703,000) in the first sale of elephant ivory for nearly a decade which began today in southern Africa.
Namibia, along with South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe, has been taking part in a UN-sanctioned auction of more than 100 tonnes of stockpiled elephant ivory that is being sold exclusively to Japan and China.
Namibia's deputy environment minister, Leon Jooste, said three buyers from Japan and three from China bought 7.2 tonnes for a total of $1.18m during the closed-door auction.
"We had nine tonnes on offer, but the remaining 1.8 tonnes will be utilised by local jewellers and carvers," he said.
The one-off sale was agreed in July at a meeting of the UN body the Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites).
Under the deal, the two countries can bid for up to 108 tonnes of ivory which has been collected from culls and natural deaths and will be used in the traditional ivory carving trade.
Both countries will be monitored by Cites to ensure that companies are not mixing illegally sourced ivory with the legal shipments. China and Japan are not permitted to export the material, and it is a condition of any sale that money raised will go to conservation projects to support elephants and community conservation and development programmes.
The issue of ivory sales is contentious. The international trade in elephant ivory was banned by Cites in 1989, but since then trading has been permitted for certain large elephant populations. Last week, eBay banned all trading in ivory on its online auction website.
Conservation bodies have warned that sales of ivory could encourage illegal poaching.
Namibia has sold more than seven tonnes of ivory for $1.1m (£703,000) in the... more
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The global ban, announced Monday on eBay's Ink blog, settles what has been a difficult issue for the online retailer. International sales and shipments of ivory are prohibited since the material comes from endangered and protected African and Asian elephants. The United States prohibits imports, exports and sale of products that come from endangered and threatened species.
However, some ivory remains in the United States in the form of heirlooms, antiques, and raw material from old estates. Some state governments have gone beyond the federal laws and instituted their own rules about buying, selling, and owning ivory. eBay banned cross-border ivory sales last year.
"This ban tried to balance the protection of endangered and protected species while also providing a way for sellers to offer legitimate ivory products legally allowed for sale within domestic markets," eBay blogger Richard Brewer-Hay wrote. "However, given the complexities of the global ivory trade, and the distinct and unique characteristics of the eBay Marketplace, the sale of any ivory on our site continued to be a concern within the company and among stakeholders."
During a meeting last week, eBay leaders concluded that they cannot determine whether ivory listed on the site complies with all laws regarding its sale. The policy prohibiting the sale of ivory and ivory products takes effect in December, and enforcement of the policy goes into effect in January.
"So, to protect our buyers and sellers, as well as animals in danger of extinction, eBay has decided to institute a global ban on the sale of all types of ivory," Brewer-Hay said.
There is, however, one exception. eBay will allow the sale of antiques (defined by the company as items made before 1900) that contain small amounts of ivory, as well pianos with ivory keys. Antique jewelry and chess sets made of ivory do not fall under the exemption and will no longer be listed on the site.
Until the ban takes effect, eBay plans to continue cooperating with law enforcement authorities investigating any suspicious sales of ivory products through its site.
The global ban, announced Monday on eBay's Ink blog, settles what has been a... more
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EBay Inc will institute a global ban on the sale of all types of ivory products by January 1, 2009, after a conservation group investigation found more than 4,000 elephant ivory listings on the online auction site.
"We feel this is the best way to protect the endangered and protected species from which a significant portion of ivory products are derived," the company said in its blog on Tuesday.
African and Asian elephants are protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act and the international Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
A report to be released later on Tuesday by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) says most sales of ivory products through eBay were done on the company's U.S. site.
"In one instance, a user purchased a pair of elephant tusks off eBay for more than $21,000," IFAW said.
Every year, more than 20,000 elephants are illegally slaughtered in Africa and Asia to meet demand for ivory products, according to IFAW.EBay Inc will institute a global ban on the sale of all types of ivory products by... more
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