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Effects of temporarily lifting the ban on trade in ivory...
August 25, 2009, 11:29 am
Amid Legal Ivory Trade, Illegal Sales Grow
By Pete Browne
When the United Nations Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species — or CITES — temporarily lifted a ban on sales of ivory last year, the aim was to feed voracious markets in Asia with ivory from existing stockpiles (or from elephants that had died naturally), generating much-needed income for Africa.
Supporters of the move pointed out that a similar relaxation of the rules in the late 1990s did not lead to an increase in poaching, and that proceeds from such sales were at least partly used to improve conservation efforts. Some 50 tons of ivory were sold to Japan at the time, generating $5 million for Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
It’s not working out quite so well this time around. For the full article:
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/amid-legal-ivory-trade-illegal-sales-grow/?scp=4&,sq=africa%20environment&,st=cse
Elephants to be culled for research - and for their own survival ( South Africa )
Eleanor Momberg, Sunday Independent
May 3, 2009
Elephants are to be culled in national parks in the near future.
This will be done as part of a controlled experimental programme undertaken by South Africa National Parks (SANParks) to determine the effects of culling, contraception and range expansion on social behaviour and the meta-population.
Culling was listed as one of the management options available in terms of the norms and standards for elephant management that came into effect last year.
Under the regulations, owners and managers of national parks and reserves roamed by the country's ever-expanding elephant populations must prove to the environmental affairs and tourism minister or their provincial MEC that killing megaherbivores on their properties is necessary based on scientific research.
Marthinus van Schalkwyk, the Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister, said last year that culling may be used only as a last resort.
David Mabunda, the chief executive of SANParks, said this week that the planned cull formed part of the proper research required as part of each national park's elephant management plan.
If we were just trigger-crazy, we would have already implemented it. But we want to implement all the options in a controlled, experimental context where we collect data, look at behaviour and cause and effect (before) deciding where each of these interventions will be the most appropriate," he said. "We also have to determine preferred management densities - what we can cope with, what are the challenges that we face in certain parts of the park ( Kruger National Park ) where the impacts vary from one area to another."
The research was not aimed at providing solutions, but rather to collect information to determine a response in terms of SANParks' adaptive management framework.
"If you are scared of experimenting and implementing, you will never learn. You will never resolve the problem. So we are looking at the basic things we can do," he said, adding that no behavioural or other data was recorded by former park authorities during culling programmes between 1967 and 1994, when more than 16 200 elephants were killed.
Mabunda said the conservation authority could not wait until elephants killed more people.
Range expansion, which had already been implemented through the opening of migratory routes in transfrontier parks, was a medium- to long-term option.
It had not been successful in the short term, as most elephants that had moved to the Mozambican side of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park had returned to Kruger.
Those areas are populated - not clean, empty, vast open areas. When elephants come across... villages, it is a threat, so they turn around. As long as the human population is exploding and continues to increase rather than decrease in those areas, we will have either human-elephant conflict or elephants coming back to Kruger."
Another problem was that most of the country's elephant populations consisted of animals born within the boundaries of national parks and reserves. There was thus no memory of past ranges. "They are territorial. To re-establish those ranges, we would need to allow another 100 years or so. But do we have 100 years? No," said Mabunda.
Translocation was not an option, he said, referring to a proposal by the Sabi Sands Game Reserve management to move 500 elephants to Zambia . "How are you going to translocate 500 elephants?"
Culling, he conceded, would not be easy. But it was quick.
"It will make us feel comfortable that the numbers are not that threatening, that it gives other species an opportunity, that they are not going to eat themselves out of home and range," said Mabunda.
In terms of the country's sustainable usage policy, the meat from dead elephants would be sold to local communities, SANParks staff and whoever wants it at a rate that would cover the cost of processing the carcass.
"We don't want to create a dependency and a sense of entitlement in communities to the meat, nor do we want to create an impression that this is a commercial venture and we want money out of it. But there is a cost when you process a carcass, so we must offset that," said Mabunda.
He refrained from saying when the pilot culling project would start, because the management plans for elephant-range parks such as Kruger, the Addo Elephant National Park and Marakele National Park were still being finalised.
Different interventions would be introduced in each park, some with a combination of management options, he said. "Our priority is to understand the underlying effects of those interventions," Mabunda said.
"People will be making all kinds of noises about culling, (but) we are not going to bludgeon people to death simply because they... have an anti-culling view."
But there was no other option.
"Cull we will... I am not going to fool myself and South Africans and promise them what I can't deliver and say I will translocate 1,000 elephants to somewhere. There is no somewhere. And in this current financial climate I don't think there is anyone with money to back up that huge operation. How many elephants can you move by plane and how long is that going to take? For ever. We must be realistic... That is the truth; sometimes it is hard reality," said Mabunda.
SILENCES AND SPINDOCTORING: TRYING TO ACCESS GOVERNMENT INFORMATION ON ELEPHANTS IN SOUTH AFRICA
PRESS RELEASE: Date : 22 October 2008
The implementation of the controversial Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) legislative policy on elephants (the National Norms and Standards on the Management of Elephants in South Africa) which was promulgated eight months ago, has been put to the test by Animal Rights Africa (ARA), who have just completed a two-month investigative report.
ARA attempted to establish from DEAT and provincial conservation officials exactly how available and accessible comprehensive information relating to the use of elephants and their management actually is. These include the use of “culling”, the exact quantity of the elephant ivory stockpile held in the country, elephant hunting, the killing of so-called “damage causing animals”, the number of elephants held in captivity and the execution of some of the administrative processes called for by the Norms and Standards. The progress of drafting a “Minimum Standards” document in relation to the welfare of elephants in captivity (zoos, circuses and elephant back safaris) was also explored.
Many stakeholders involved in the debate leading up to the publishing of the NN&S are very interested in monitoring their implementation and in order to assess progress need access to a variety of information, information this report shows that is difficult, at times extremely so, to a obtain. Access to this information is therefore crucial to these entities that are playing a watchdog role, holding government to account and representing the elephants’ interests.
The findings of the ARA Report, entitled “Silences and Spin Doctoring: Access to Information on Elephants in South Africa ”, reveals alarming trends which appear to fly in the face of open and transparent governance.
Information and statistics in relation to culling, hunting and ivory stockpiles is inaccessible, incomplete, contradictory and, not independently verifiable. Obtaining information, particularly from some provinces is extremely time consuming and a frustrating undertaking. There are unfair and unjustifiable delays in the processing of legitimate public interest requests for government information to which civil society has a right in our democracy.
The legislation authorises culling but states that this must be considered after all other options have been exhausted, i.e. as the last resort. ARA research shows that currently it is impossible to track where and if culling is taking place and therefore the concept of “culling as last resort” cannot be publicly and independently monitored as conservation authorities are not making their intentions regarding culling known widely.
ARA is concerned that because while the Norms and Standards stipulate that the elephant management plans have to be submitted for all land and properties with elephants, provincial or private, in most instances officials say that these documents and permits cannot be disclosed because in doing so they might infringe third party confidentiality. This makes it difficult any independent body or member of the public to subject the implementation of this legislation to proper scrutiny.
Despite NGO opposition, DEAT shed its responsibility for managing captive elephants by passing welfare issues on to the Department of Agriculture (DOA). ARA has now learnt that the DOA is negotiating in bad faith and privileging the elephant exploitation industry to the detriment of the animal protection groups because it has been solely ‘consulting’ with individuals and groups within the captive elephant industry. This is despite public statements by Minister van Schalkwyk that consultation on these welfare issues would be compiled with input from ALL interested stakeholders.
DEAT does not have a current figure for South Africa’s total ivory stockpile despite being granted permission by CITES (the Convention on Trade in Endangered Flora and Fauna) to sell 51 tons of ivory to China and Japan in November this year. DEAT also does not have national statistics on the numbers of elephants hunted, killed as so-called “damage causing animals” or in terms of “ecological management.” Nor does DEAT currently have an accurate figure for the number of elephants kept in captivity and keeps no record of worker fatalities, even though at least five handlers/workers have been killed by captive elephants in the past seven years.
Said ARA spokesperson Michele Pickover, “the consequence of ARA’s findings is that the exploitation and oppression of elephants is continuing unabated in South Africa and it appears that our Minister and his department are good at spin doctoring but little else.”
The full Report can be downloaded from:
http://www.animalrightsafrica.org/Archive/Elephants/Silences_and_Spin_Doctoring_an_ARA_Report_Oct_2008_final.pdf
Contact :
Steve Smit ( Durban ) 082 659 4711
Michele Pickover ( Johannesburg ) 082 253 2124
E.mail : info@animalrightsafrica.org
SOURCE: http://www.animalrightsafrica.org/PR_22Oct08_Silences_Spindoctors.php
Culling Elephants Could Cost SA
Independent Online News (www,iol.co.za) Tourism
11 September 2007 -9:16 PM
South Africa's fast-growing tourism industry could be hit by elephant culling,
an animal rights group has warned.
A "substantial number" of tourists
would not come to the country if culling was reintroduced, Animal Rights Africa
trustee Steve Smit told members of Parliament's environmental affairs and tourism
portfolio committee.
This assessment was based on discussions held with local tourism operators
and tourism marketing agencies, as well as international animal rights
organisations, he said. Earlier this year, Environment Minister Marthinus
van Schalkwyk unveiled a set of draft norms and standards for the management
of South Africa's elephant herds.
Culling is among the range of options the document offers national
parks to control elephant numbers, although Van Schalkwyk has given
the assurance he will not "give a blank cheque" to the park authorities
in this regard.
South Africa stopped the culling of elephants - in the Kruger National
Park - in 1995.
Link to complete article:
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=180&art_id=nw20070911153949388C132109
South Africa: Culling 'Last Resort' for Elephant Management
BuaNews (Tshwane)
14 August 2007 - Posted to the web 14 August 2007
Shaun Benton
Cape Town
Culling elephants would only be considered as a last resort, after
contraception or translocation, a senior official in the Department
of Environmental Affairs and Tourism told MPs on Tuesday. Leseho Sello,
a chief director in the department, was briefing the Portfolio Committee
on Environmental Affairs and Tourism on national norms and standards
for management of elephants.
Translocation and even contraception, she explained, are the preferred
ways of managing South Africa's growing elephant population. While
these are the preferred options, South Africa had not removed from
the table the option of culling the animals, Ms Sello said. But the
Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk,
had instructed that culling be considered only as a very last resort,
she said...
Link to complete article:
http://allafrica.com/stories/200708140661.html
Elephants Are Given Reprieve at UN Conference
The Hague, The Netherlands - Botswana, Namibia, South Africa
and Zimbabwe agreed at a United Nations meeting in The Hague today
not to propose additional ivory trade from their countries for at
least nine years, or 2016 at the earliest. The agreement was reached
at a meeting of the 171 members of the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) which
will conclude tomorrow.
Link to complete article:
http://media-newswire.com/release_1052411.html
African elephants get 9-year reprieve
mongabay.com
June 14, 2007
Link to article:
http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0614-elephants_ivory.html
Let Elephants Keep Their Ivory -- a Video Message for hte CITES Convention
The CITES convention is currently being held in The Hague, Netherlands.
Under discussion are African Elephants and the trade of stockpiled
ivory. As a result from a previous sale of stockpiled ivory, there's
been an increase in poaching, despite elephants being on the endangered
list.
Lelystad, Netherlands (PRWEB) June 8, 2007 -- The Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is currently
convening in The Hague, the Netherlands. On the agenda, among other
topics being discussed in the next two weeks, are African elephants
-- again.
Link to complete article:
http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2007/6/emw531590.htm
South Africa: Plan to Train Elephants for Safaris Under Fire From
Animal Lover
Cape
Argus (Cape Town)
7 May 2007
Posted to the web 7 May 2007
John Yeld
Cape Town
Removing elephants from the wild and breaking them in for use as safari
animals for tourists is unacceptable, the Department of Environmental
Affairs and Tourism was told.
This message was sent by animal lovers ahead of last Friday's deadline
for public comment on the department's draft "Norms and standards for
elephant management in SA".
Link to complete article:
http://allafrica.com/stories/200705070640.html
Jumbo e-prayers for elephants
10/05/2007 09:24 - (SA)
Mariska Spoormaker, Die Burger
Port Elizabeth - A prayer group for elephants, which
has a link to the internet, are on their knees as South Africa considers
the possibility of selective culling. The prayer circle, known as E-posse,
spans several continents via an internet link which leads to Join the
Elephant Prayer Circle.
Anna Breytenbach, one of the few animal communicators in South Africa,
is throwing her full weight behind it.
Complete article:
http://www.news24.com/News24/Technology/News/0,,2-13-1443_2111323,00.htm
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