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Sustainable
eNews |
November 2002 |
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IWMC
World Conservation Trust |
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All Creatures,
Great and Small
November 7,
2002
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Kenya has proposed (Document 63) that there be
changes to CITES in order that apes caught in war zones can be exported
(rescued - in the words of the document) without anyone going through the
usual legal export permit process.
The CITES Secretariat has commented that all creatures
suffer in times of political unrest that culminates in physical stress, or
conditions that are, or approximate, war. While we agree, IWMC feels it is
vitally important to add that Kenya's Doc. 63 expresses concern only for
certain high profile primate species, and that this concern alone does not
justify changing or throwing out long-standing CITES rules of procedure.
As the Secretariat pointed out, definitions of war are
tenuous, and there is an important point here about the sovereignty issue.
Range States must retain their rights to have sole authority to issue
export permits, or to authorize delegation of temporary management
authority to another body. This must not be taken from the range States on
the basis that "there is a war going on".
IWMC and the Secretariat of CITES are in agreement. Kenya's
Document 63 is inappropriate, and should not even be considered by
Committee or by Parties in the Plenary. War is Hell on all creatures, and
their habitats. CITES is a convention that is meant to add some sanity to
the world, in peace or in war, and must not be tampered with in a manner
that would alter its meaning and its structure. 
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