Poachers preparing for ivory trade to resume - Kenya
Date: 14-Oct-02
Country: KENYA
Author: Paul Casciato
Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said it would oppose South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Zambia next month when they seek a loosening of the total ban on international ivory trading. Kenya says any relaxation of the ban would endanger the entire population of African elephants.
"The minute you do that (re-open trade) the poachers will say: Aha! now we can go do it," KWS director Joe Kioko told a news conference.
He said 81 Kenyan elephants had been killed illegally in 2002 compared with only 57 last year as poachers stock up, hoping to slip their illegal booty into a legal market.
Kenya and India have both proposed tightening the ban to protect elephants from the trade in tusks, which was banned under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
KWS officials said they will argue the 1990 ban on African ivory needs to continue until more effective monitoring systems are put in place to track elephant populations when signatories to the convention meet in Santiago, Chile on November 3 to discuss the proposals.
"We are not saying no never, we are saying not now," Deputy chairman of Kenya Wildlife Service Richard Leakey told the news conference.
Kioko and Leakey poured scorn on the arguments of countries which say they need to open limited trading to reduce burgeoning elephant populations and sell off stockpiles of ivory to bolster their enfeebled economies.
"Our position is that we have the same problems," Leakey said.
He said the difference was that Kenya recognised that if the trade was allowed to resume it would be impossible to keep track of legal and illegal ivory, track poachers or even keep a reliable monitor on elephant populations at risk.
KWS officials said the CITES ban did not stop countries from culling elephants, allowing trophy hunting for big game hunters, elephant-back safaris or internal trade in ivory.
CHINA IS BIGGEST IMPORTER
A report by consultants for conservation organisation, Save the Elephants, found China to be the largest importer of illegal ivory in the world, most of it from Africa. Most of China's ivory production is in illegal, privately owned workshops.
The report said ivory is still a prized commodity used in Asian sculpture, musical instruments and decorative objects.
KWS confirmed that Chinese authorities had seized three tons of Kenyan ivory last month hidden in a consignment labelled as wood and said records indicated that over 16 tons of ivory had been seized this year, mostly in Asia.
The biggest buyers of Chinese-worked ivory are ethnic Chinese from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. Japanese are also significant ivory buyers. European and American visitors to China buy small amounts and some is smuggled into Europe, mainly France, Italy and Spain.
