In London last week, international media scrambled to cover the high-level and much anticipated international conference on illegal wildlife trade. However, there was one notable absentee, namely South Africa.
The country’s absence at the conference and non-participation in the signing of the London Declaration has raised concerns regarding its commitment to ending the onslaught on its rhinos. And conservationists and South African taxpayers want answers.
The London Summit was hosted by the British government and led by Prime Minister David Cameron, Foreign Secretary William Hague, Prince Charles and his son William, the Duke of Cambridge. More than 40 countries and four presidents from Africa attended. Participants, including end-user countries China, Laos, Vietnam and Nepal, signed a declaration aimed at eradicating illegal trade in wildlife products.
The London Declaration urges practical steps to end the illegal trade in ivory, rhino horn, tiger parts and that of other wildlife. Some very powerful people who gathered in central London have now signed this commitment, but not South Africa.
The African elephants’ plight was a key focus, with nearly 50 000 (one every 15 minutes) slaughtered each year due to demand for ivory in Asia, particularly in China. It is estimated that there are less than 400 000 elephants left in Africa.
Demand for rhino horn in Vietnam and China, meanwhile, has seen 2 453 rhinos killed in South Africa over the past four years, where more than 80 percent of the world’s rhino live.
Less than 25 000 remain worldwide and if the current poaching trends continue, both elephants and rhino in the wild will become extinct in the next 10 to 15 years.
Seventeen African states are signatories to the London Declaration, including Mozambique (where rhinos are now extinct and from where the majority of poaching incursions into Kruger take place). At the conference the governments of Botswana, Chad, Ethiopia, Gabon and Tanzania signed an Elephant Protection Initiative – to put their ivory stockpiles beyond economic use and to observe a moratorium on any future trade for at least 10 years.
This raises the question of why South Africa’s Minister of Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa, was not present.
In President Zuma’s State of the Nation address last week, he highlighted tourism as one of five key areas for job creation and economic growth.
The survival of the Big Five is a key component of job creation and influx of foreign exchange in safari tourism. Does the absence of South Africa in London last week perhaps underscore conflicting views between South Africa and other African nations on rhino and ivory trade?
Is South Africa so committed to serving the narrow self-interest of a few powerful private rhino owners that it is prepared to chance isolation? Considering that the Swedish and Dutch Postcode lotteries donated R232 million for rhino conservation a week ago, it is embarrassing for South Africans that the country was so conspicuously absent.
While conservationists from outside South Africa seem to be coalescing around non-trade initiatives, with the five Asian range states reaffirming their support for the international ban on rhino horn trade in October last year, South Africa remains split into two camps.
The pro-trade lobbyists, supported by the South African government, deem rhino horn trade as the Holy Grail for funding of rhino conservation.
In order to achieve this, Minister Edna Molewa will apply to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) in 2016 to legitimise trade in rhino horn, risking severe damage to our international reputation when the bid fails, as fail it must.
Yet, in recent weeks we have seen the international community do the opposite: they have chosen to destroy their ivory stockpiles as a message against trade. The Tanzanian president, Jakaya Kikwete, has announced the decision to destroy his country’s ivory stockpile, while Chad’s Environment Minister announced last week that his country would destroy its entire stockpile of ivory on February 20, following in the footsteps of Gabon, the US, Philippines, China and France.
Hong Kong has also committed to destroying 28 tons of confiscated ivory. At the same conference the US announced a comprehensive ban on the sale of ivory in the US, the world’s second-biggest ivory market.
By most accounts, the last Cites ivory sale in 2008, when 108 tons were sold to China and Japan, has been a failure as it fuelled demand. With China now becoming the world’s leading consumer of both legal and illegal ivory, the price has skyrocketed from $153/kg (R1 670) to about $2 000/kg. These sales have given the illegal ivory traders a route to market as it is extremely difficult to differentiate legally held ivory from illegal supplies.
Since these sales, elephant-poaching has increased significantly, with the species now threatened with extinction in numerous countries – and the same is likely to happen to rhinos, should South Africa’s trade bid be successful.
With the plight of the rhino left unrepresented at this crucial forum, South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs has a lot to answer for.
* Kotze is a businessman, conservationist, aviator, strategist and wildlife photographer. This article first appeared in the Daily Maverick and http://conservationaction.co.za