Editorial:
The Future of CITES
Efforts
to improve efficiency and craft a strategic action blueprint for CITES,
set into motion in 1996, is beginning to bear fruit. That well-intentioned
effort poses both positive and potentially negative consequences for the
future of CITES.
On the positive side, is the sincere desire by CITES to improve its ability to carry on its mandate to safeguard the conservation of endangered and threatened wild resources involved in sustainable international trade. Danger lies in the possibility of re-directing CITES away from its narrow but important focus on international trade and expanding its activities in areas more correctly dealt with by other treaties such as the Convention on Biological Diversity. The history of this effort is complex, to say the least. In 1996, ERM was charged with conducting a review on "how to improve the efficiency of the Convention". The recommendation to develop a strategic plan was not formally adopted by the Convention of the Parties at its 10th meeting in Harare in 1997. COP 10’s Decision 10.59, however, did direct the CITES Standing Committee in co-operation with other permanent Committees to develop a document outlining a medium/long range (3-6 year) structure for the work of the various permanent Committees. At its 40th meeting in London in
1998, the Standing Committee charged a working group with drafting a strategic
plan for CITES. A draft of that plan was submitted to the Plants and Animals
Committees for their review. With input from the Animals and Plants Committees,
the document appears headed in the correct direction as illustrated in
draft objective 1.1:
The recent push to involve CITES in the struggle for dominion over seafood as well as issues dealing with invasive alien species, African bushmeat, and the use of animals and plants for medicinal purposes raise flags of concern. The fear is that the nations and NGOs advancing these and other issues might not have the promotion of sustainable international trade as the true objective behind potential CITES action. To the contrary, the tendency, observed by IWMC, appears that some countries and NGOs attempt to use CITES to advance their own side agendas that [marginally at best address trade issues] go far beyond the mission and objectives of the treaty.¨ British
Columbia Professor
Professor
Michael Marker of the University of British Columbia (Canada) wrote a scathing
indictment of NGO racial stereotypes of First Nation cultures in an essay
published in the Vancouver Sun (July 24, 1999) after attending a debate
between Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd and Makah tribal lawyer, Alvin
Ziontz. NGO therotic against the Makah nation's resumption of whaling prompted
Professor Marker's comments that NGO and media attitudes portraying native
people as "depraved and without a culture" are, in fact, "irresponsible
and dangerous".
speaks out against NGO Racism Professor Marker described the NGO denunciation of the Makah's identity as a "whaling people" as prompted by "a supreme unwillingness to accept aboriginal people's right to self-determination on their own terms rather than on the permission of environmentalists". The "environmentalist prescription" for solving the social and economic problems of communities such as the Makah's Neah Bay in Canada, according to Prof. Marker, is "take eco-touring yuppies out in sea kayak trips to watch the whales; build some nice hotels with cedar carvings; clean up the rez; move the tacky mobile homes out; perform some nice "traditional" songs and dances in "real traditional" costumes while you serve salmon, nice wines and micro-brews to the Microsoft set". Prof. Marker believes animal rights
NGOs ultimately "would prefer that they (the Makahs and other aboriginal
people) not be Indians at all:, that they'd rather have First Nations jettison
their native cultures and "become more like us", the NGOs themselves.¨
Predator
reintroduction protested
Reintroduction
of brown bears in the Pyrenees Mountains is proving both successful and
controversial. News reports from Paris tell of hundreds of shepherds
protesting this new threat to their flocks. The original three bears,
imported from Slovenia three years ago, have multiplied to six. Forty-five
sheep have been killed this year with reports of others mauled or who jumped
to their deaths from fear of the marauding bears.
by French Shepherds A small population and reducing population of brown bears existed in this area before the reintroduction but was subject to illegal killing either because of damage to sheep or because of poaching by hunters. The reintroduction appeared necessary to prevent the extinction of the population that France, including Brigitte Bardot, was unable to protect. It is worth was knowing that one of the reintroduced animals, a female, was shot dead by a hunter, officially in self-defense. Similar problems exist in France, as well as in Switzerland, but in the Alps region, where wolves originating from the flourishing Italian population are recolonizing habitats from where they had disappeared a long time ago. It is interesting to put in parallel
this situation with the policy of France within CITES regarding species
like the African elephant. But they are not in the same garden!¨
Giant Panda
Births
All
the world loves Giant Pandas. Now there are three more to share that
affection. A rare three-cub litter was born at The Giant Panda Breeding
Research Center in China’s Sichuan province. Two survived.
The third, the smallest of the litter died of a bladder disorder.
Another panda cub was born to eight-year-old Bai Yun at the San Diego Zoo,
the first successful Giant Panda birth in the United States since 1990.
Panda births in captivity are celebrated events. Giant Panda’s are
reported to have a 60 percent mortality rate at birth due to vulnerability
to disease and being crushed by adult Pandas. Bai Yun is on loan
to the San Diego Zoo from China.¨
Bless China & the United States Patagonian folklore shows
The
following translation of an aboriginal tale describes the ancient whaling
lore of the Patagonian Ona and Yahgan tribes. It is one of several stories
referring to whales found in the work of Esteban Lucas Bridges, first son
of one of the most important pioneers of the Patagonia, "Uttermost Part
of the World – Indians of Tierra del Fuego". The life’s work of Thomas
Bridges and his son Esteban Lucas preserving the history of the Patagonian
region is both one of the richest heritages left to men of good will and
an example of peaceful cohabitation and harmonious utilisation of living
resources with the Ona and Yahgan tribes.
Whales were hunted by Fuegian Tribes "This enormous fellow Kwonyipe seems to have made quite a practice of metamorphosis before he was himself transferred to a celestial sphere of activity. There was, for example, his treatment of the hunter who was not content with guanaco meat. Shamaninkwas always fortunate in his hunting, for he had three uncommonly good dogs. He belonged to the eastern part of Ona-land and may have allied to the Aush, as he generally hunted on the borders of the country. Shamanink was always grumbling. He said that the guanaco were small and thin, and the meat poor. Kwonyipe heard of these continual complaints and was so displeased by them that he changed him into the fierce creature known as the killer whale, which ever afterwards, when in company with his fellows, fell upon and slew the mighty Ohchin (whale). Shamanink’s three hunting
dogs were also changed by Kwonyipe into savage fish, possibly swordfish,
to help their master to hunt the whale. Sometimes they drove Ohchin
on
the beach, and then the Ona were pleased with Shamanink and his
dogs."¨
Bangladesh
Tigers need Help
Tripanosomiasis
Paradise Disease has devastated Bangladesh's Dhaka Zoo tiger population.
Four tigers died during the last week in August with yet another, Arjuna,
currently stricken. Arjuna is the mate of Mamata, the most current tiger
fatality. Together they produced a three-cub litter last year. One
cub died August 24th. IWMC received a plea from contacts in Bangladesh
to spread word of the growing tragedy and the need for help at the Dhaka
Zoo worldwide.¨
U.S. Efforts
to end Air Pollution
Decades
of myopic insistence on ridding its skies of pollution from automobile
traffic while discounting the need for a holistic approach to environmental
issues has found the United States in a very ticklish position, according
to reports from the Associated Press. The gasoline additive - methyl tertiary
butyl (MTBE) - is an oxygenate that allows gasoline to burn cleaner. According
to a report compiled by the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management,
(a consortium of eight Northeastern states: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts,
New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont) MTBE
is proving a toxic pollutant to waterways. The report urges the phasing
out of MTBE but offers no clear alternatives that lack the potential of
safeguarding water at the expense of increasing equally toxic air pollution.¨
may be Toxic to Water General Information
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