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Two tons of illegal ivory confiscated en route from Uganda
Last week, an unaccompanied cargo of two tons of ivory and five rhino horns left Uganda’s Entebbe airport and... Full Story |
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Hot off the press is our report on the Hippo Survey of Queen Elizabeth, all the more poignant this year for its ability to help monitor the current Anthrax outbreak that has so far resulted in the... Full Story |
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| Countries oppose plan to relax 21 year old ban on ivory sales |
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Conservationists scored a rare victory at a UN wildlife summit on 22nd March when contentious proposals by Tanzania and Zambia to weaken the 21-year-old ban on ivory sales were defeated due to concerns it would further contribute to poaching. The heated debate over the proposed sale of the two countries' ivory stocks divided Africa at the 175-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Nearly two dozen central and east African countries came out against the proposals on the grounds that they would hurt already declining African elephant populations. Southern African countries, in contrast, argued the two nations should be rewarded for the conservation efforts undertaken and should have the right to manage their herds as they see fit. "People born in 100 years, they should be able to see an elephant," said Kenya's ministry of forestry and wildlife Noah Wekesa, whose country opposed the sales. "We have a duty to make sure we increase the numbers of elephants", he said. The ivory stocks the two nations wanted to sell come from natural deaths or controlled culling of problem animals. Key to the defeat of the two proposals were concerns among many delegates and environmentalists that the sales would further exacerbate a poaching problem that some say is at its highest levels since the 1989 ivory ban. Samuel K Wasser, director of the Centre for Conservation Biology at the University of Washington, said there was a clear link between one-off sales and the rise in poaching. he said the sales revive dormant markets by sending consumers the message that it is acceptable in general to once again buy ivory and make it difficult to differentiate between legal and illegal products. Traffic, the wildlife trade monitoring group, tracks ivory seizures and found that poaching and smuggling to markets mostly in Asia has risen steadily since 2004. They blame weak law enforcement in Africa and growing demand for ivory products like chopsticks and ivory jewellery mostly in China, Thailand and other Asian countries. The price of ivory on the black market has risen from about $200 a kilogram in 2004 to as much as $1,500 now. (Extract from an article by Michael Casey, 23rd March 2010, www.guardian.co.uk/environment/wildlife) Comment - UCF is involved with Sam Wasser in a project to build a worldwide database of elephant DNA to enable confiscated ivory to be traced back to its origins and focus anti-poaching measures. UCF is sending samples of elephant dung from across Uganda to Sam Wasser to analyse and map onto the DNA database. Your donations will help this work. Read more abbout the elephant DNA analysis project here. |