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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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American hunters are emerging as a strong and growing threat to the survival of African lions, with demand for trophy rugs and necklaces driving the animals towards extinction, a coalition of wildlife organisations has said.
Demand for hunting trophies, such as lion skin rugs, and a thriving trade in animal parts in the US and across the globe have raised the threat levels for African lions, which are already under assault because of conflicts with local villagers and shrinking habitat.
"The African lion is a species in crisis," said Jeff Flocken of the International Fund for Animal Welfare. "The king of the jungle is heading toward extinction, and yet Americans continue to kill lions for sport."
Two-thirds of the lions hunted for sport were brought to America over the last 10 years, a report released by the coalition said.
The organisations, which include IFAW, the Humane Society of the United States, Humane Society International, Born Free and Defenders of Wildlife, called on the White House to ban the import of lion trophies and parts by listing the animals as endangered species.
The number of wild African lions has fallen sharply in the last 100 years, the organisations said. A century ago, as many as 200,000 roamed across Africa. Now, by some estimates, fewer than 40,000 remain in the wild; others put the figure for survivors at 23,000, and they have vanished from 80% of the areas where they once roamed.
Lions have become extinct in 26 countries. Only seven countries – Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe – are believed to contain more than 1,000 lions each, according to the Panthera conservation group – which is not part of the coalition making the appeal.
The single biggest threat by far to the animals' survival is humans, though not necessarily western hunters. "It is just the very, very widespread killing of lions, mostly in a conflict situation, by anyone who is trying to farm livestock in Africa and finds it very difficult to co-exist with lions," said Luke Hunter, the executive vice-president of Panthera.
There is also a lot of pressure on lion habitats with wilderness areas shrinking to build roads – such as the controversial highway across the Serengeti – or to make room for agriculture.
But the report by the wildlife coalition, filed with the White House on Tuesday, said western hunters were a growing danger to the lions' survival.
Between 1999 and 2008, 64% of the 5,663 lions that were killed in the African wild for sport ended up being shipped to America, it said. It also said the numbers had risen sharply in those 10 years, with more than twice as many lions taken as trophies by US hunters in 2008 than in 1999. In addition to personal trophies, Americans are also the world's biggest buyers of lion carcasses and body parts, including claws, skulls, bones and penises. In the same years, the US imported 63% of the 2,715 lion specimens put up for sale.
For some countries, including Tanzania, Zambia, Namibia and Mozambique, hunting for sport was the main threat to the lions' existence. But even in countries which did not attract large numbers of tourists on hunting trips, the practice was taking a growing toll.
The conservationists noted that hunters' penchant for bagging a male lion risked wiping out entire prides. The loss of the alpha male could set off a struggle for supremacy among the survivors that could lead to further deaths of adult male lions, or male cubs seen as potential threats.
A hunting ban, the conservationists said, would reduce that threat by taking Americans out of the game. It's one of a range of threats to the survival of the species, said Teresa Telecky, director of wildlife for Humane Society International. "But what is most certainly true is that of all the threats to the African lion, the one we can best address here in this country is their import."
Flocken noted that all of the other big cats are protected – jaguars, leopards and tigers. "African lions are the only ones left out there," he said.
However, other wildlife experts argued that a total hunting ban was a "nuclear option". They said responsible hunting could in some cases help conserve populations by maintaining wilderness areas. Existing US and international regulations, such as the Cites conventions against trafficking in endangered species, could also be reinforced to protect lions, they said.
"If you remove hunting, the very real risk is that you force African governments to generate revenue from that land and the obvious thing is cattle and crops which just wipe out habitats," said Hunter.American hunters are emerging as a strong and growing threat to the survival of... more
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This is really only the start of what needs to be done to help hault loss of biodiversity worldwide.This is really only the start of what needs to be done to help hault loss of... more
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TRAFFIC - Wildlife Trade News - World leaders have failed to deliver commitments made in 2002 through the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to reduce the global rate of biodiversity loss by 2010, and have instead overseen alarming biodiversity declines, according to a paper just published in the journal Science.
In the first assessment of progress made towards achieving the 2010 target, scientists from a wide range of institutions examined data from over 30 indicators of biodiversity – such as changes in species’ populations and risk of extinction, habitat extent and community composition – but found no evidence for a significant reduction in the rate of decline.
“Our analysis shows that governments have failed to deliver on the commitments they made in 2002: biodiversity is still being lost as fast as ever, and we have made little headway in reducing the pressures on species, habitats and ecosystems”, said Dr Stuart Butchart, of the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre and BirdLife International, and the paper’s lead author.
“2010 will not be the year that biodiversity loss was halted, but it needs to be the year in which we start taking the issue seriously and substantially increase our efforts to take care of what is left of our planet.”
The indicators included in the study were developed and synthesized through the 2010 Biodiversity Indicators Partnership – a collaboration of over 40 international organizations and agencies developing global biodiversity indicators and the leading source of information on trends in global biodiversity.
They included indicators developed by TRAFFIC and IUCN to monitor trends in the status of species used for food and medicine. These showed that birds and mammals used for these purposes are generally more threatened than those that are not. This may be due to over-exploitation or for other reasons such as habitat loss, or a combination of factors.
“Regardless of the causes, the diminishing availability of wildlife resources threatens the health and well-being of the people who depend on them directly for food and medicine and on their wild harvest as a source of income,” said Thomasina Oldfield, Research and Analysis Programme Leader for TRAFFIC and a co-author of the Science paper.
There needs to be urgent action to tackle the world’s biodiversity crisis, coupled with sustained investment in coherent monitoring and use of indicators to track and improve the effectiveness of any responses.
The results from the latest study will feed into Global Biodiversity Outlook 3, the flagship publication of the CBD, to be released in Nairobi on May 10th, when government representatives from around the world will meet to discuss the 2010 target and how to address the biodiversity crisis.
“Although nations have put in place some significant policies to slow biodiversity declines, these have been woefully inadequate, and the gap between the pressures on biodiversity and the responses is getting ever wider,” said Butchart
http://www.traffic.org/home/2010/4/30/world-governments-fail-to-deliver-on-2010-biodiversity-targe.htmlTRAFFIC - Wildlife Trade News - World leaders have failed to deliver commitments made... 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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Last week the secretary of the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), Willem Wijnstekers, announced that security forces in Zimbabwe had poached approximately 200 rhinos in a two year period. He did say how many elephants were poached by security forces.
The revelation means that Zimbabwe will have to explain the poaching to CITES or lose their ability to trade ivory.
The minister of Environment and Natural Resources Management, Francis Nehma, says that the nation needs vehicles and helicopters to control the troubled nation's widespread poaching problem. Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai (in a power-sharing agreement with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe) said that security forces involved in poaching must be brought before the law and punished.
Rhinos have almost vanished from Zimbabwe due to a poaching epidemic.
The Critically Endangered black rhino continues to be threatened by poachers across Africa. Approximately 4,000 survive in the wild.
http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0214-hance_zimpoach.htmlLast week the secretary of the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered... more
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Their sheer size and strength have made them among the most celebrated of endangered species, yet they have all been betrayed — by vested interests at a UN meeting on wildlife protection.
Proposals to ban trade in bluefin tuna and polar bears were overwhelmingly rejected yesterday at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), meeting in Doha, Qatar.
A plan for a 20-year ban on ivory sales, to protect African elephants, is also likely to fail in the coming days — partly because Britain and other members of the EU are refusing to support it. Delegates are instead expected to approve a weak compromise, which would encourage poaching by allowing the sale of ivory being stored by several African nations.
Feelings were running high yesterday about the failure of measures to protect endangered tuna. Only 20 of the 120 countries at the meeting voted to ban trade in the bluefin. Intensive lobbying by Japan, which consumes 80 per cent of Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin, meant that a snap vote was held before any debate on scientific reports that show a catastrophic decline in the largest of the tuna family.
Campaigners reacted with dismay. Oliver Knowles, of Greenpeace, said: “It is an own goal by Japan. By pushing for a few more years of this luxury product it has put the future of bluefin, and the future of its own supply, at serious risk. The abject failure of governments here at Cites to protect Atlantic bluefin tuna spells disaster for its future, and sets the species on a pathway to extinction.”
The Cites process, which requires a two-thirds majority for a proposal to be adopted, is vulnerable to well-funded lobbying by countries and industries that depend on trade in a species. The vested interests exploit uncertainties in the estimates of population numbers, and strike backroom deals to secure the votes of developing countries where endangered species are far down the list of political priorities.
A US proposal to protect polar bears fell victim to arguments put forward by Inuit groups that their livelihoods depended on hunting the animals. The vote on protecting elephants is due on Monday, and is viewed by wildlife groups as the last opportunity to protect many of Africa’s most threatened herds.
The few remaining elephants in Sierra Leone were killed in October by poachers serving the thriving black market in ivory, which fetches up to $1,500 (£980) a kilo in the Far East. In the Zakouma National Park in Chad, poaching has cut the population from 3,885 in 2006 to only 617 last year. The number of elephants lost to poaching in Kenya has quadrupled in the past two years. Kenya is one of seven African nations proposing a 20-year moratorium on sales of stockpiled ivory.
read more at articleTheir sheer size and strength have made them among the most celebrated of endangered... more
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A proposal to ban the export of Atlantic bluefin tuna, which is a sushi mainstay in Japan, has been rejected by a UN wildlife meeting.
Thursday's decision occurred after Japan, Canada and many poor nations opposed the measure on the grounds it would devastate fishing economies.
Monaco tabled the plan at the meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
Stocks have fallen by about 85% since the industrial fishing era began.
Monaco argued that the organisation responsible for managing the bluefin fishery - the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (Iccat) - had not implemented measures strict enough to ensure the species' survival.
Scientists and campaigners working with conservation organisations were disappointed with the outcome.
"We think it is quite a blow, because Iccat has not been able to demonstrate that it is able to implement procedures that will lead to [the bluefin's] recovery," said Glenn Sant, leader of the global marine programme with Traffic, the international wildlife trade monitoring network.
"There was really no question that it met the [scientific] criteria for listing."A proposal to ban the export of Atlantic bluefin tuna, which is a sushi mainstay in... more
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Two different forms of shark fin go into this cup of shark fin soup. (Photo: Jeff Young)
At CITES, the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species, representatives from 175 countries will focus on the necessity of developing management plans for marine animals, including the bluefin tuna and eight species of shark. Sharks are routinely hunted for their fins, which are used as a delicacy in shark fin soup. Stony Brook University professor Demian Chapman does DNA research to identify shark species and geographic origin. He tells host Jeff Young why it’s important to regulate international trade of sharks.
http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=10-P13-00011&segmentID=1Two different forms of shark fin go into this cup of shark fin soup. (Photo: Jeff... more
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Melting sea ice in the Arctic will kill thousands of bears in coming years, the US says, and continued commercial trade must not be allowed to make the situation worse
It is a familiar story in the climate change debate. The US government is at odds with the rest of the world and, despite criticism, wants other countries to change their minds and fall in line behind Uncle Sam.
This time, the tale comes with an unexpected twist. This weekend, the US will warn that the threat from climate change to the survival of the polar bear is so great that the world must grant it the highest possible protection.
At the meeting of the international body that regulates trade in animals, the US will push for a total ban on the sale and movement of polar bear products that are used for furs, rugs and taxidermy.
Other countries, including US neighbours (Canada) who are keen polar bear traders, disagree. Canadian polar bear products are used for furs, rugs and taxidermy.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/12/polar-bears-endangered-species-listingMelting sea ice in the Arctic will kill thousands of bears in coming years, the US... more
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The EU has decided to support a ban on international trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna, reports indicate.
The bloc is reported to have agreed to push for a ban at next week's meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
The US has already backed such a move, but Japan - where most bluefin is eaten - may opt out of CITES controls.
Last year, scientists commissioned by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (Iccat) said the bluefin's decline had been so stark that a ban was merited.
The stock is now at about 15% of the level it was in the era before industrial fishing began.
Most bluefin is sold to Japan for use in sushi and sashimi restaurants. Under a CITES ban, EU member states would not be allowed to export bluefin caught in their waters to Japan, and would not be able to fish in international waters.
However, conservationists and some EU countries have been concerned that other Iccat countries around the Mediterranean - the principal fishing ground - could also opt out of a CITES ban.
That would allow those countries to continue fishing and exporting the tuna to Japan.
The CITES meeting, in Qatar, opens this weekend.The EU has decided to support a ban on international trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna,... more
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Japan will not join in any agreement to ban the international trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna under the United Nations treaty on endangered species, the country’s top fisheries negotiator said.
The negotiator, Masanori Miyahara, said in a telephone interview this week that Japan “would have no choice but to take a reservation” — in effect, to ignore the ban and leave its market open to continued imports — if the species was granted most-endangered species status.
“It’s a pity,” he said, “but it’s a matter of principle.”
The position of Japan, which consumes about 80 percent of the bluefin tuna caught in the Mediterranean, “is very simple,” Mr. Miyahara said: A different organization, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, known as Iccat, should manage bluefin tuna catches and protection, not Cites.
Mr. Miyahara said Tokyo acknowledges that the bluefin tuna needs protection, but the endangered-species convention is “quite inflexible,” he said. “It is designed to protect endangered species. We support Cites strongly for that purpose, but it is very, very hard to change.”
Historically, he said, almost no species added to the Cites endangered species list has ever been removed again. “We don’t believe the bluefin tuna is endangered to that extent,” he said.
There is little argument about whether the species is in trouble. Iccat scientists say the number of bluefins in the eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean declined by more than 74 percent from 1957 to 2007, with more than half that decline in the last 10 years. The rise of industrial-scale fishing using a method called purse-seining, which can capture entire schools of tuna at once, accounted for much of the recent depletion.
Environmentalists fear that without quick action the bluefin could become commercially extinct. WWF International estimates that the population of spawning females could be effectively wiped out by 2012 if fishing continues at the current level.Japan will not join in any agreement to ban the international trade in Atlantic... more
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Seafood-loving Japan - having faced years of international pressure to stop whaling - finds itself with a potentially bigger fight over a highly prized type of tuna that conservation groups say is being fished to extinction.
A proposal to ban the export of Atlantic bluefin tuna - vaunted for its succulent red and pink meat - could slash supplies and drive up prices in Japan, the world's biggest consumer and importer of the fish.
Talk of banning imports of the species has made some Japanese feel their very way of life is under attack. The fish is often served as sushi, the iconic Japanese dish.
"Any ban is going to have a big impact culturally and economically," said Masaru Nakazawa, a 63-year-old wholesaler at Tokyo's sprawling Tsukiji fish market.
But environmentalists say the Atlantic bluefin is a vanishing species and insist a ban on its export by the world body that governs wildlife trade is the last chance to save it in the face of skyrocketing global demand and a failure by governments to abide by existing quotas.
Bluefin tuna, of which the Atlantic and Pacific are the most common species, is served in upscale sushi restaurants worldwide - but any export ban would hit Japan hardest.
Japan buys nearly 80 per cent of the annual Atlantic bluefin catch. Top-grade sushi with fatty bluefin - called "o-toro" here - can go for as much as 2,000 yen ($20) a piece in high-end Tokyo restaurants.
Atlantic bluefin accounted for about half the 47,400 tons (43,000 metric tons) of bluefin tuna that Japan consumed in 2008, the last year for which statistics were available. The other half came mostly from the Pacific.
Member countries of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, will consider the proposed ban at a meeting in Qatar in March. Monaco, which proposed the measure, said the bluefin species numbers have fallen by nearly 75 per cent since 1957 with most of the declines occurring in the past decade and that current measures are not enough to ensure it is fished sustainably.
If the proposal is approved, Atlantic bluefin would be listed in Appendix 1 of the convention, which would allow only domestic consumption within countries of the European Union. Activists say that would lower the catch substantially because shipments to Japan would be prohibited.
A ban would also likely raise prices for bluefin in the U.S. But the biggest impact would be consumer awareness: People would be prompted to avoid ordering bluefin, said Trevor Corson, the New York-based author of "The Story of Sushi."
"If (Atlantic) bluefin tuna becomes an endangered species, that's big news. That will wake a lot of people up," Corson said.
Some in Japan also worry that a ban could open the door for bans on trade in other tuna species.
"This could set a dangerous precedent. The list could grow to include the yellowfin and bigeye tuna, too," said Hisao Masuko of the Japan Tuna Fisheries Cooperative Association. "If nothing is done, we won't have any tuna at Tsukiji fish market."Seafood-loving Japan - having faced years of international pressure to stop whaling -... more
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Trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna would be banned and trade in certain types of shark controlled if the recommendations of a United Nations-backed group of independent experts are accepted by the parties to an international treaty on endangered species.
The proposals by the advisory panel of experts convened by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) will be submitted to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) at its 15th Conference in Doha, Qatar, in March.
Following a six-day review, a majority of the 22 experts from 15 countries agreed that the available evidence supported the proposed listing of Atlantic bluefin tuna under CITES Appendix I, which calls for an outright ban on trade, although they failed to reach a consensus.
There was a consensus, however, that available evidence supported including Atlantic bluefin tuna on Appendix II, which entails controlled trading. The experts also determined that sufficient evidence existed to warrant placing the oceanic whitetip shark, Porbeagle, and Scalloped hammerhead shark on Appendix II.
CITES was established to protect wild species whose status is being directly affected by international trade, but it is not designed to protect species endangered for other reasons.Trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna would be banned and trade in certain types of shark... 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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Monaco has tabled a proposal to place Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna on the list of the world's most endangered species in a move that could ban international trade of the fish.
As one of the most popular sushi staples, bluefin tuna has become increasingly in demand in recent years and its stocks have plummetted over the last decade in both the Atlantic and Mediterranean.
Now, according to a draft proposal put forward by Monaco with CITES, the UN agency against illegal wildlife trade, stocks are so fragile that the species should be classified as being at threat of extinction.
"At this stage we believe that the time for CITES to intervene is long overdue," Monaco said in its submission.
If the proposal were to be adopted by the 175 countries in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), it would end international trade in the fish although local fishermen would still be allowed to sell their catches in domestic markets.
"This measure wouldn't imply a ban on fisheries but it will eliminate the main cause of overfishing: high sushi and sashimi market demand of countries such as Japan or United States," said Maria Jose Cornax, a marine scientist at Oceana, an environmental group specialising on marine life.
Despite warnings that bluefin tuna stocks have been running low, attempts in recent years to simply impose limits on fishing have sparked controversy.
At the moment, bluefin tuna has no form of protection under CITES -- the only global body with the authority to limit or ban global trade in animal and plant species.
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.
Meanwhile, tuna stock in the west Atlantic has plunged by 83 percent between 1970 to 2007.
Even with a near-complete ban on bluefin tuna fishing until 2022, the population would still fall to record lows in the coming years, it added.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in mid-July that France would support such a proposal despite its objections to European Union fishing quotas.
Other countries supporting the ban include Germany, Britain and the Netherlands.
Monaco's proposal is expected to be considered by CITES' 175 member states at a meeting in Qatar in March.Monaco has tabled a proposal to place Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna on the... more
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Declining populations of tunas received conservation support from countries bordering the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean this week as governments realize how much damage overfishing has done to the world's tuna stocks.
President Nicolas Sarkozy of France today announced his country's support for a ban of international trade in endangered Northern Bluefin Tuna, joining a growing call to list the overexploited fish under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, CITES.
Speaking at the close of a national stakeholder consultation on France's future sustainable fisheries and maritime policy, the "Grenelle de la Mer," President Sarkozy said, "France supports listing bluefin tuna on the CITES convention to ban international trade."
Sarkozy put this in the context of France's support for a broader sustainable fisheries policy. "Ours is the last generation with the ability to take action before it's too late — we must protect marine resources now, in order to fish better in future. We owe this to fishermen, and we owe it to future generations," he said.
The Principality of Monaco was first to communicate its willingness to sponsor a proposal to ban international trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna, and has this week launched a formal CITES consultation process to seek the support of other range States.
Northern Bluefin Tuna is found in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean and the species is in trouble.
Contributing to the species' steep decline are the huge overcapacity of fishing fleets, catches that far exceed legal quotas, pirate fishing, the use of illegal spotting planes to chase tuna, under-reporting of catch, fishing during the closed season, management measures that disregard scientific advice — all driven by the insatiable appetite of the world's luxury seafood markets where Northern Bluefin Tuna fetches record prices.
On the other side of the world, hope for the future of the tuna stocks in the Eastern Pacific was raised when the Colombian government agreed to support an annual two month ban on tuna fishing.
Colombia's decision means that tuna fishing along the entire Pacific Coast of Latin America will be banned by all nations for two months a year to help protect the world's tuna stocks.
The ban is part of a series of measures introduced by the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) to avoid the catastrophic collapse of valuable stocks of yellowfin (Thunnus albacares), bigeye (Thunnus obesus) and skipjack (Katsuwonus pelamis) tuna.
Studies carried out by the IATTC showed a rapid deterioration of tuna populations in the Eastern Pacific Ocean – particularly bigeye – and data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization states that yellowfin tuna has been "fully exploited" in the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, meaning that stocks are seriously depleted.Declining populations of tunas received conservation support from countries bordering... more
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Whale Wars premieres Sunday Nov. 9 on Animal Planet Canada at 8 ET/9 PT.
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. • In the early 1970s, environmental activist Paul Watson served in the Canadian Coast Guard off the B.C. coast, handling weather ships, buoy tenders and search and rescue hovercraft.
He co-founded the Greenpeace Foundation in 1972, then founded the breakaway group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in 1977. While on a campaign against Russian whalers, Watson came up with the novel idea of placing a himself between whalers' harpoons and their prey.
None of that, though, quite prepared Watson for last December's seagoing stunt off Antarctica, where he sailed a crew of greenhorns and first-time mariners out of Melbourne, Australia to the chilly waters off the end of the world.
There, they spent three months pursuing, hounding, harassing -- and being harassed by -- Japanese whalers determined to fill their "research'' quotas.
--For Watson, the issue is simple. The International Whaling Commission passed a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986, he patiently explained to a small but curious crowd.
"So what the Japanese are doing is targeting an endangered species in a whale sanctuary, in violation of that moratorium,'' Watson explained, warming to his subject. "Their argument is that they're doing it for scientific research purposes. However, they've killed more whales in the past 20 years than they killed in the previous 50. It's illegal, and it's deemed so by international law.''
Watson is grateful for the publicity Whale Wars will bring.
"It shows everything that happens on the ship, from our daily activities, cooking up vegan food in the galley and doing our laundry, to how we sleep and play poker at night,'' Mann said. "And seasickness. Serious, serious seasickness.''
Watson makes no apologies, even now, for his hands-on approach to environmental activism.
"I left Greenpeace a long time ago because I got tired of seeing whales die, '' Watson said. "Since the day I left Greenpeace, I have not seen a single whale die. When we show up, they stop killing whales. It's really as simple as that.''
"This movement is a movement of diversity,'' Watson continued. "Our niche is direct intervention. What we do, we do on the high seas. There are other organizations involved in litigation, legislation, lobbying, that sort of thing. We are an interventionist organization. That's what we do.''
If Whale Wars does nothing else, Watson hopes, it will be to show viewers how lawless the Antarctic frontier really is.
"It's a free-for-all out there. Whaling is illegal, but every time we try to bring that up with the international regulatory bodies, it just degenerates into conversations that go nowhere. The problem is that international law is unenforceable.
"So, we're going back there again. And the Japanese have promised to be even more aggressive with us. I don't know what's going to happen next. We're just going to have to test the waters, as we go forward.''
Whale Wars premieres Sunday Nov. 9 on Animal Planet Canada at 8 ET/9 PT.
BEVERLY... more
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'Souvenir' Campaigns
Shop Carefully! video produced by the TRAFFIC East Asia office in Taipei to encourage responsible buying of souvenir items
Several TRAFFIC campaigns have focused on the souvenir trade - and encourage tourists to be aware of what goods they are purchasing.
Wildlife awareness campaign, China:
In 2007, TRAFFIC, WWF, the conservation organization and Ogilvy, an advertising agency, launched an advertising campaign in mainland China aimed at changing consumer attitudes towards unsustainable wildlife trade.
The campaign, consisting of creative print, video and online advertisements in Chinese, is part of an awareness-raising project to inform urban consumers about the environmental harm that illegal and unsustainable wildlife trade causes, and by providing guidance on what actions they can take to help protect species.
The full online campaign (in Chinese) can be viewed at www.traffic-china.org
Awareness materials, Vietnam:
Public Service Announcements (PSAs) produced by the WWF and TRAFFIC Greater Mekong Programmes pertaining to wildlife consumption - in particular of of civets, pangolins, and king cobras.
follow the link to other countries listed on this page...'Souvenir' Campaigns
Shop Carefully! video produced by the TRAFFIC East... more
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This July 2008, at a CITE'S Standing Committee meeting, China was approved to buy
"legal ivory" from Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Japan has
already been approved, with the one-off sales likely later this year. The
approval was opposed by many countries, most notably the African Elephant
Coalition, a group of 19 elephant Range States. But their concerns were ignored
by those countries which voted in favour of China, which included the UK.
Lifting the strict ban on the sale of ivory and permitting legal imports is likely to
facilitate laundering of illegal ivory and will therefore increase elephant
poaching. Yet poaching has already reached crisis point, particularly in West and
Central Africa. More than 20,000 African elephants are estimated to be killed
every year. But there may be as few as 7,500 elephants remaining throughout
West Africa and just 475,000 across the continent.
Now that China and Japan have been approved to purchase stockpiled ivory,
the situation can only get worse. It is a death sentence for elephants.
Unscrupulous criminal networks are taking advantage of the legal trade to
launder illegal ivory into the poorly regulated markets. Urgent funds are
needed to protect the remaining elephant populations.
Shelley Waterland,
International Trade Specialist, Born Free Foundation
Stop the bloody ivory tradeElephant poaching and the illegal trade in ivory is a multi-million pound business
often run by highly organised criminal networks. Every dead elephant can yield
10kg of ivory, worth possibly thousands of pounds. It is usually the most
vulnerable elephant populations that are targeted for this poaching, particularly
in West and Central Africa. For some elephant populations there is still time, but
we have reached crisis point in many countries and funds are urgently needed
to equip rangers and train enforcement officers.
In 2004 there were thought to be around 4,000 elephants in Zakouma National
Park in Tchad, in Central Africa. Today they number less than 1,000. Similarly the
Central African Republic is estimated to be losing around 500 elephants a year
from poaching. If elephant poaching in West and Central Africa is not brought
under control very quickly, there will no longer be any elephants left to protect.
Wildlife rangers are risking their lives every day to protect elephants from
armed poachers. Can you help them? The rangers urgently need better
equipment and training.
http://www.bornfree.org.uk/give/autumn-appeal/ivory-report/
http://www.bornfree.org.uk/give/autumn-appeal/
Will Travers, Chief Executive, Born Free Foundation
This July 2008, at a CITE'S Standing Committee meeting, China was approved to buy... more
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