FYI to anyone interested, the "Environmental Investigation Agency"
http://www.eia-international.org/ is a not an official agency. They are a
private group, actually an animal rights group, which, IMO, is a bit
disingenuous using "agency" in their name so as to appear to be some
official group. They have been putting up road blocks to elephant management
for years and clearly want a complete and total ban on ivory trade. No doubt
some ivory trade is responsible for poaching, but the claim that *all* ivory
trade is responsible is simply not true. Once again, this is an AR issue
trying to as a conservation issue. The issue of elephant management is very
complex and all simple solutions are immediately suspect.
sb


-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of John Foster
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2000 8:57 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Ethics of Ivory Ban Not in Question Now


http://www.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/01/25/elephants.enn/index.html

Elephants face killing fields again


January 25, 2000

By Margot Higgins

The 10th anniversary of an international ban on ivory trading is no cause
for celebration when elephant poaching is on the rise, conservationists say.

Conservationists maintain that elephants across Asia and Africa are once
again falling prey to illegal hunting due to the relaxation of the ban,
which began in January 1990. To add insult to injury, Zimbabwe, Botswana and
Namibia were granted one-time limited sales permits for elephant products in
1997.

Allan Thornton, chairman of Britain's Environmental Investigation Agency,
called this decision "the biggest conservation blunder of the 1990s." The
agency is demanding that all elephant populations be given back their most
protected status under Appendix I of the Convention of International Trade
in Endangered Species. The convention, which includes 146 participating
countries, will next meet in April in Nairobi, Kenya.

In April 1999, Japanese ivory traders bought nearly 60 tons of ivory from
Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia. "The sale of ivory to Japan was supposed to
be preceded by implementation of international safeguards in the form of a
monitoring system to detect increased poaching," said Thornton. "The system
was not established and now elephants are paying the price."

The agency registered its own outrage and frustration in a recent press
release: "It is EIA's view that a legal ivory trade provides a cover for the
black market, a view confirmed by the upsurge in both elephant poaching and
illicit ivory seizures."

The International Fund for Animal Welfare also came out strongly against the
ivory sale. "Any way they spin it, this is bad news for elephants," the
group said in a public statement. "This sale [was] based on assurances from
CITES and national authorities that the capacity exists in Africa today to
enforce and monitor elephant poaching. Yet now we are being told that this
so-called 'non-commercial' sale will provide desperately needed funds to
increase enforcement. It doesn't take a brain the size of an elephant's to
figure out that something is fundamentally wrong here."
>From 1979 to 1989, poaching fueled by ivory sales decimated half of
Africa's
elephant population.

>From 1979 to 1989, elephant poaching fueled by ivory sales cut Africa's
elephant population in half.

Conservationists say herds have not fully recovered from the great massacre
and many small populations could be wiped out completely if poaching
continues.

Environmental Investigation Agency spokeswoman Debbie Bell said the 1989
CITES ban caused ivory prices and elephant poaching to drop "virtually
overnight." Major traders closed their markets to ivory imports and demand
plummeted.

Tanzania had been losing as many as 100,000 elephants a year from poaching.
After the ban, the losses dropped to fewer than 100 per year.

Poaching has devastating effects on the structure of elephant populations.
Hunters often seek the oldest elephants to obtain the largest tusks, wiping
out the mature members of the population. The pattern has profound
implications on the reproductive capacity in elephant herds.

Male elephants generally do not mate until they are about 30 years old. With
the slaughter of so many mature males, the rate of reproduction is quite
low. Poaching has also been blamed for disrupting the stability of herds,
which in turn impacts the ability of elephants to breed.

Copyright 2000, Environmental News Network, All Rights Reserved




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