IWMC World Conservation Trust

In This Issue

Australia Provides Key Reason Against Listing Great White Sharks

Why Appendix II Is Appropriate For Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, And Zimbabwe’s Elephants

Poaching Is Appalling Misleading The Press, Public And Policy Makers Is Criminal

Nations Safeguard Whales / Regulate Whaling

Using Proven Models to Fund Conservation

IWMC Observations On India -Opinion-

General Information

Mr. Kay’s remarks emphasis the correctness of international and or regional shark management by such agencies as the UN’s Food & Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) international fisheries committee (COFI).�

Poaching, the illegal killing of wildlife, is appalling, on this we all agree. 

The deliberate spreading through the press of misinformation about the status and management of animals that results in the perpetuation of conflict between humanity and wildlife that in turn results in wildlife and human suffering is criminal. 

Certainly the NATION misspoke when it said, “the only way to guarantee the future of the world’s wildlife is to ruthlessly destroy the market for animal products.”  Such a future is bleak indeed. 

The biggest threat to wildlife is poverty and the lack of social order.  Kenya’s wildlife service proved that point.  An apparent lack of funds resulted in Kenya’s cutting its budget for enforcement against poaching by half, from $600,000 in 1997 to $300,000 in 1999.  The result was an increase in poaching of Kenya’s elephants. 

But poverty that threatens wildlife is not limited to an impoverished government.  Throughout history, people fighting poverty turned to wildlife resources to slake their hunger.  That is true throughout the planet.  Even the United States did not see its people shift from “slaughter of wildlife” (to use the NATION’s term) to a national concern with conservation until that nation was able to feed its people.  Its deer, elk, bear, antelope were all teetering on the brink of extinction at the opening of the 20th Century. 

Today, its people enjoy an abundance of food as well as unprecedented educational and healthcare opportunities.  They enjoy sufficient wealth that allows just their hunters alone to voluntarily pay nearly USD$500 million for wildlife and habitat management.  As a result, their wildlife is thriving. 

In Kenya and other range states, poverty is rampant.  No one can deny that.  Sustainable trade with a fair and just distribution of earned wealth, throughout history, has been the chief factor that has improved the human condition.  Again, the United States, the United Kingdom and others prove this point. 

Until poverty is eliminated and social order established among those people living in closest proximity to wildlife, pressures on wildlife and habitat will continue.  Kenya is free to choose how it resolves such issues in its nation.  Other nations, particularly those who only recently gained independence and freedom, certainly have the right to choose the path they and their people will follow. 

Some, like Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa look to the surplus of their wildlife resources to help eliminate poverty.  Some look to the bounty of the ocean.  Minke whales number a million.  Grey whales are more abundant today than before the days when the United States, Britain, Australia and other wealthy western nations sent their fleets to plunder the seas of whale oil and waste precious meat.

No one condones trade, illegal or otherwise, in truly endangered species.  All nations, if they are to avoid the status of outcast, recognize the moral and ethical obligation to conserve wild species for this and future generations.  They also recognize the importance of using what nature provides to feed their people and to insure that wildlife, humans, and habitat are maintained in a healthy balance.

Rather than burn ivory stockpiles and waste the gift God and elephants presented to humankind, Kenya should have used that wealth to reduce poverty among its government and people.  The life of one child lost because the price of medicine could not be paid or the loss of one elephant due to the inability of the government to pay the salary of a single game guard cannot be the future the NATION sees for Kenya, its people or its wildlife. 

When the earth’s people are fed, when they have hope for their future, only then will the future of wildlife be assured.�
 

“Norway resumed limited, legal whaling in 1993. The intervening years no evidence of illegal or pirate whalers has been found,” said Dr. Milton Freeman, (title)  “Claims that smugglers and poachers are waiting in the wings for global legalization of whaling to launch vessels to illegally kill whales make no practical sense.  The black market in any commodity thrives only where legal availability is denied.”

Contrary to popular belief, legal whaling today is largely regulated by domestic national and regional environmental laws that address whaling and whale stock sustainability, not the international measures from the International Whaling Commission (IWC).  Approximately five percent of whale species landed in legal whaling operations fall under IWC authority.  Only five current whaling operations are regulated by the IWC: the bowhead and grey whales in Russia and the United States; minke and fin whales in Greenland; and humpback whales in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Local and regional regulation of legal whaling is working.  A recent TRAFFIC report found no evidence of illegal whale meat in Japanese markets, shops, or restaurants.  In fact, enforcement is effective.  The rare attempts to introduce illegally taken whale meat on the Japanese market have failed with the contraband confiscated by authorities.�
 

Sixty years ago, the United States was worried about declining native flora and fauna.  The federal government knew that each state needed a professional conservation program and funds to preserve and manage wild species, many of which faced bleak and threatened futures. 

To solve this problem, the U.S. Congress voted to tax hunting equipment – guns and ammunition, mainly – allowing wildlife users to provide the needed money.  Congress then gave those funds to states with scientific wildlife management programs on the condition that they must be used exclusively for wildlife projects.  This approach proved fabulously successful for wildlife and people.  This “user-pay” model, with a borrowing or two from the techniques employed by international lending institutions, should be adaptive to the needs identified by CITES.

For example, a “user” tax could be placed by nations on such items as wildlife jewelry, wild-caught fur, as well as trade in CITES-listed birds, fish or other wild flora and fauna.  CITES nations already keep records of quantities of species traded and country of origin.  The tax could be collected either upon import or at the final sale.  A special account could be kept with money for administration taken from that account.

With the remaining funds, each “user” state could designate those countries, species, and projects eligible to receive money accumulated in the account.  Matching funds from the receiving nation might be required thereby giving that state “ownership” of the project. 

This model provides a way to raise funds, encourages cooperation among nations, and preserves range state sovereignty in the management of its indigenous wildlife species.�
 

Of equal concern to IWMC in regard to the India situation is the pattern that appears to be emerging among protectionist NGOs.  For too long India has aligned its approach to conservation with the non-use ideology of the protectionist NGOs.  No matter the appearance of “friendship” portrayed by this community, the fact remains that the true relationship they foster is one of patient opportunity.

If the sanctions recommended by the CITES Mission are imposed on India (and we don’t for a moment believe they will be) the immediate effect will be a cessation of foreign funds to conserve the vitally important tiger.  Such an embargo on funds will not be tolerated by CITES, the tiger or the world. 

Therefore, we believe conditions will be ripe for a “friendly takeover” of India’s Tiger conservation programs in general or at least of its enforcement program by a “friendly” NGO where the “objective” NGO steps in to assure CITES and the world that funds donated to conserve and protect India’s wild tiger resources will be well spent.

Precedents for such “third party” oversight exist in the Forest Stewardship Council and the Marine Stewardship Council.  The effect is not improved conservation or enforcement.  Rather it is an investing of added power in NGOs (and providing them with yet another theme for fundraising) and undermining the sovereignty of range states in managing resources.  The advantage to the NGO acting as the third-party overseer is obvious in terms of fundraising potential and their taking a percentage of donated and government funds for “administrative” purposes. 

Such a precedent must not be set in India.  The effects on tiger conservation and the rights of range nations will be devastating.�