Hides and other wildlife products on sale at a market in Laos.
Protective measure: sawing off a rhino’s horn in Namibia.
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Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES)
Set up in 1975 following growing international
concern about species at risk of extinction because of international trade, CITES
places degrees of restriction on trade depending on the perceived risk to a species.
Those in imminent danger of extinction are listed on Appendix I, which bars all international
trade. Less endangered species are placed on Appendix II, which allows controlled
trade subject to permits, and on Appendix III, which restricts trade on a regional
level.
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“The key to using wildlife
sustainably is good management but in many countries the resources or expertise are
simply not available.” |
The decision to strictly limit
or outrightly ban trading in endangered species regularly puts governments and conservationists
before a critical dilemma
 South Africa recently announced
that it is ready to part with 1,500 elephants which, it says, are destroying trees
that other species depend on for their survival in the country’s famous Kruger National
Park. If there are no takers the animals will be culled and their tusks added to
South Africa’s bulging ivory stockpile.
The South African offer highlights a critical dilemma facing all those concerned
with wildlife conservation: is it possible to protect endangered species like elephants
and rhinoceros effectively if trade in wildlife products, even on a one-off basis,
is allowed? South Africa is one of many African countries which argue that a limited
trade in wildlife product stockpiles should be allowed so that the proceeds can be
used to pay for conservation. Governments and conservation groups that are hostile
to this approach claim that any kind of sale will stimulate the illegal market, encourage
more poaching and ultimately push species such as elephants and rhino closer to extinction.
The debate on this controversial issue reaches a crescendo every two or three years
at the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species (CITES). The convention has 151 member states which vote at the conference
on proposals to limit or place an outright ban on international trade in species
considered to be at risk (see box, p. 14). At the CITES conference held in Nairobi,
Kenya, in April this year, calls to lift the ban on trade in products such as ivory,
turtle shells and whales provoked fierce debate.
While countries like Kenya and India opposed lifting the ban on the ivory trade,
Japan and Norway wanted the ban on whaling lifted because, they said, the stocks
of some whales on the endangered list are healthy enough to withstand commercial
harvesting. After long deliberations, the CITES parties agreed to maintain the existing
trade ban on ivory products, turtle shells and whale meat for the next three years.
Conservationists no longer oppose the idea of wildlife being exploited per se. If
properly managed, they say, wildlife can provide food for impoverished rural populations
and wildlife-based tourism can be an important source of income.
However, the sustainable use of wildlife means striking a delicate balance. “We only
support using wildlife where it is beneficial to both the local community and to
the ecosystem,” says Gordon Sheppard of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
“It is oversimplistic to ban trade,” says Jon Hutton, director of Africa Resources
Trust (ART), an NGO involved in community conservation schemes in southern Africa.
“We need to assess the trade-offs and come to a rational decision. We have to weigh
up the profits from trade that can be reinvested in wildlife conservation, through
funding government law enforcement or indirectly through providing an income for
local communities, against the possible costs, such as an increased risk of poaching.
“In much of Africa, wildlife represents a net cost. It can kill people and damage
crops and is therefore eradicated, either deliberately or gradually by exclusion.
More and more land is being converted to agriculture, even if it is marginal for
livestock, because rural people often have no alternative. ART is involved in schemes
which return wildlife ownership to farmers. They then have a choice between cattle
and crops or wildlife, and in many cases, they choose the second. Wildlife can be
sold three times: to tourists, to sport hunters, and finally as ivory and hides.
The sale of wildlife products often brings in the most revenue. The sale of ivory
and hides for example represents 80 per cent of the value of an elephant. Tourism
can bring in revenue, but most of the profits are made by international tour operators
and not by local communities. Sport hunting on the other hand can bring in enormous
revenue for the local community and it can be carried out in areas that may not be
suited to tourism.”
While the “non-consumptive use” of species for tourism is accepted by most wildlife
organizations, some are against “consumptive use”—the killing of animals for food
or profit. Animal welfare organizations believe that it is almost impossible to exploit
animals without severely affecting their populations. “In principle, it is a nice
idea,” says Sarah Tyack of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), “but
there are too many examples of where it has failed.”
Rhino
revenue
In practice,
experts say managing sustainable use of a species can be very difficult because wildlife
needs and animal behaviour patterns have to be carefully balanced with human needs.
Some species such as the hawksbill turtle (see page 16), can easily be overexploited,
and uncontrolled tourism can severely affect some species. In Kenya’s famed Masai
Mara reserve, for example, scientists found that the hunting success of lions was
reduced by a heavy inflow of tourists. Large groups of tourist vans tend to gather
around the cats and frighten off their prey. “The key to using wildlife sustainably
is good management but in many countries the resources or expertise are simply not
available,” says Sheppard.
South Africa provides a good example of the sustainable use of an endangered species.
The African white rhinoceros is one of the most endangered animals on earth but South
Africa, as home to 80 per cent of the estimated 8,500 animals remaining in the wild,
has plenty. Well protected from poaching, South Africa’s rhino population is growing.
“Numbers could double in a decade,” says the World Conservation Union’s (IUCN) Rhino
Specialist Group, “but only if there is sufficient new land for surplus animals.”
The South African government argues that if it were allowed to export rhino horn,
currently banned under the CITES, the revenue generated would help to pay for rhino
conservation. What is more, profits from rhino horn would act as an incentive for
private landholders and communities to maintain wild areas for rhino conservation.
South Africa charges a trophy fee for rhino hunting, which generated $24 million
between 1968 and 1996, when the country’s white rhino population quadrupled. Revenue
from hunting finances the high cost of protecting rhinos from poachers, which can
be as much as $1,000 per km2 per year.
The interest in rhino has also helped fund national parks. When protected from poaching,
rhino populations can increase to a level where they are too numerous to survive
in limited park areas. To keep populations within ecological limits, live rhino are
sold to private rhino sanctuaries. In KwaZulu-Natal, sales of live rhino, which can
fetch up to $30,000 per head, generated a turnover of $1.57 million in 1998, and
last year’s rhino sales provided about 10 per cent of the KwaZulu-Natal Nature Conservation
Service’s operating budget. “In a time of declining government spending on conservation,”
says Martin Brooks, head of Scientific Services with KwaZulu-Natal Nature Conservation
Service, “wildlife sales have been a vital source of revenue for conservation.”
However, other African states, which do not have sufficient funds or staff to tackle
poaching, argue that any legal trade in rhino horn will stimulate the illegal market
and lead to heavy poaching.
For example, people living in Damaraland in northwest Namibia are against lifting
the ban on trade in rhinos. When the region’s rhino population was dwindling in the
early 1990s due to illegal poaching, the Save the Rhino Trust, a UN-sponsored group,
started a project which encouraged local populations to benefit from rhino through
ecotourism. The project has been successful in generating revenue for the local community,
and former poachers have even been recruited as rhino trackers for tourists.
“We worked with the communities and they saw that the rhino were worth more to them
alive than dead,” says Simon Pope, who worked on the project. “The people worked
hard to save their rhino but were very worried about international trade in rhino
horn being allowed. They believed that it would encourage poachers to come and take
away their livelihood.” Unprotected by park rangers, rhinos on communal lands would
be especially vulnerable to increased poaching.
Japan, which strongly opposed boosting trade restrictions at the recent CITES conference,
argued that complete protection of endangered species would be detrimental to national
economies and communities dependent on wild species for their livelihoods. During
the conference, Japan and Norway aggressively lobbied for removal of the Minke and
Grey whales from the endangered species list.
It is estimated that there are more than a million Minke whales. Japan and Norway
argue that the population is healthy enough to allow a sustainable harvest. However,
many conservationists insist that the other great whale species have not yet recovered
from centuries of commercial slaughter and that a limited trade in Minke whale meat
could not be regulated well enough to prevent the illegal hunting and sale of meat
from these protected species.
Changing
consumer habits
What hard evidence
exists to show that limited trade in wildlife products might stimulate consumer demand
and lead to increased poaching? In 1997, the CITES conference sanctioned the one-off
sale of ivory stockpiles from Africa to Japan as an experiment. About 60 tonnes of
ivory were sold. Two years later African governments, including Kenya, and a number
of international conservation organizations quoting independent studies, argued that
poaching and the movement of illegal ivory stocks had increased as a result of this
one-off sale.
There are nevertheless questions about whether trends in poaching and the illegal
market can be inferred from studies which, due to paucity of funds, are often weak
in their methodology and focus on limited areas. “Independent studies from non-governmental
organizations can be unreliable,” says Sabri Zain of TRAFFIC, an international organization
set up by the IUCN and WWF to monitor international trade in wildlife. To help to
fill this gap, the European Union has promised to donate four million Euros ($4 million)
to monitor elephant poaching and the illegal trade in ivory.
Another key problem is that of enforcing international trade bans and keeping tabs
on regulated sales. “Tiger poaching for bones for traditional Chinese medicine, as
well as for skins, remains a grave threat,” says Peter Jackson, chair of the IUCN’s
Cat Specialist Group. “Unfortunately effective measures to control or reduce illegal
trade are seldom enforced in most range countries, despite resolutions by the CITES
Conference of the Parties.”
Advocates of trade argue that tighter controls simply incite smugglers to become
more sophisticated and drive illegal trade further underground. Furthermore, some
wildlife derivatives are almost impossible to detect. Raw ivory might be difficult
to conceal but tiger bone can be powdered and rolled into cigarettes or boiled down
into gelatine.
Meanwhile, conservationists have been active in curtailing demand for some wildlife
products. Education programmes in China have encouraged consumers to reject tiger
bone remedies and an international campaign is currently underway to highlight the
plight of the Tibetan antelope, which is in danger of being hunted to extinction
for its fine fur, used to make highly sought after shahtoosh shawls.
Conservationists have also co-operated with Chinese medicinal practitioners to find
alternatives to tiger bone and rhino horn, which are used in traditional medicines.
Mole rat bone is now being promoted in China as an alternative to tiger bone and
there is some evidence of a reduction in the use of tiger-based medicines. Less than
five per cent of Asian consumers surveyed in Hong Kong, Japan and the United States
said that they had actually used medicine containing tiger parts.
Declining
resources for conservation
Trade bans
should probably be given more time to see if they can be made more effective through
international pressure on governments and educating consumers. “A trade ban can only
be as effective as the national measures taken to stop illegal hunting and trade,
and the efforts made to enlist the involvement of governments and consumers,” says
Steven Broad, director of TRAFFIC.
But some argue that trade or no trade, time is running out for wildlife. “The biggest
single threat to wildlife is the destruction of habitat,” says Simon Rietbergen of
IUCN. The figures are alarming: we have already removed or seriously degraded 80
per cent of the planet’s forest cover and 50 per cent of the world’s wetlands. “Lack
of resources and declining government budgets for conservation are leaving many parks
without adequate protection,” says Rietbergen. No matter how effective a trade ban,
it cannot slow down the current rate of habitat loss or pay for wildlife protection.
Trade which has the potential to save more wild areas and pay for their protection
may ultimately be the preferred option.
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