Johannesburg - With more than 100 000 African elephants killed since 2010, 29 African countries have banded together in a bid to ban ivory trade to ensure the survival of Africa’s elephants.
This week, the African Elephant Coalition (AEC), which includes Mali, Kenya, Uganda South Sudan and Rwanda, among others, called on the EU to take action.
“In 25 years there may not be a single elephant remaining in Africa if current rates of killing continue,” said Azizou El-Hadj Issa, the former minister of agriculture in Benin and president of the council of elders of the AEC.
“The situation is alarming in most of our countries. Elephants are slaughtered every day, rangers are being killed and the trade is fuelling terrorism, which destabilises the continent and has huge repercussions for EU security,” he said.
El-Hadj Issa said the EU “needs to support us and become part of the solution to this crisis”.
“We, the Africans, have that solution and we call on the EU and its member states to throw their support behind our proposals,” he added.
The AEC is also calling on the EU to extend its commitment towards implementing the African Elephant Action Plan, adopted by all African elephant-range states in 2010, by supporting the listing of all African elephants.
It believes that this will enhance the unity of African nations with respect to elephants and elephant conservation.
Last week, AEC members met in Switzerland to share their commitment to ensuring the survival of the African elephant, following several meetings there in the past week.
The meetings were held to consolidate their position in the run-up to the 17th Conference of the Parties (CoP17) of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites), which will be taking place in Joburg in September and October.
“A global, permanent ban on ivory trade is the only way to ensure the protection of elephants,” said Vera Weber, president of the Swiss-based Foundation Franz Weber, a partner of the AEC.
“African countries in the AEC, which are losing their elephants to poachers every day, are blazing the trail to shut down the global ivory market and put an end to this senseless killing forever,” she said.
Five complementary proposals submitted to Cites in late April by AEC countries, together with other co-proponents, provide an integrated package to protect elephants by strengthening international Cites law.
These five proposals include the closure of domestic ivory markets, the destruction of ivory stockpiles, ending the decision-making mechanism for legalising trade in ivory and limiting the export of wild, live African elephants to conservation projects in their natural habitat.
Taken together, the proposals would put an end to the ivory trade and afford elephants the highest protection under international law.
Of the 29 countries represented in the coalition, 25 of them are African elephant-range states, which comprise the majority of 37 countries in which African elephants occur in the wild.
The package is a decisive response to the poaching crisis facing African elephants over the past decade, caused by the legal sale of ivory stockpiles to China and Japan in 2008, with Cites’s permission.
At the height of the killings, from 2010 to 2012, at least 100 000 elephants were slaughtered in Africa for their ivory, many in AEC countries.
With South Africa facing similar issues with elephant poaching, especially in the Kruger National Park, the proposals are a welcome plan in an attempt to put an end to elephant poaching.
Last month, Kruger National Park rangers echoed these sentiments, explaining that the only way to save elephants was to end the supply or demand for ivory.
“If no one buys it, poaching will stop,” said ranger Thomas Ramabulana.
“The biggest problem that we are facing is the value of the elephant tusks and the rhino horns. If the international community makes it worth nothing, then there is no supply or demand,” he added.
A social media campaign in the run-up to CoP17 uses the hashtags #WorthMoreAlive and #EndIvoryTrade.
The coalition is also expected to endorse the Twitter hashtags #SupportAppendixI and #EndTrade.
@Lanc_02
The Star