Conserve living elephants don’t preserve the dead It is the final fight to save elephants in the wild. Countries around the world are becoming more aware of the role that ivory stockpiles play in fuelling poaching and the deaths of elephants. Over the last 12 months countries have stepped up to the mark and destroyed or are destroying their ivory stockpiles to take the tusks of dead elephants out of the market place for good. Even China and Hong Kong, the two major destination countries of tusks have started to destroy their stocks. Other countries, in particular the United States, have gone further and introduced legislation that has effectively shut down the ivory trade in their borders completely. Even the Chinese government understand that ivory is not a market to be involved with and state owned companies and retailers have pulled out of the market. Retailers in Hong Kong have said there is no future for ivory trading in ethical companies and are closing down their ivory departments. The world is turning against there ever being another CITES sanctioned ivory auction and stockpiles around the world are being destroyed. So why is the news coming out of Tanzania indicating the Britain is going against the world and offering to pay to preserve anything between 112 and 120 tonnes of ivory. Tanzania’s stockpile is estimated to contain 38,000 tusks – that is the equivalent of 19,000 dead elephants. In his recent visit to Tanzania the former Africa Minister Mark Simmonds signed a deal with Tanzania which will help the country produce and inventory of it’s stockpile and reported the British taxpayer will pick up the expense of preserving and storing those 38,000 tusks for at least 10 years. But the full details of the deal signed in July is sketchy. It is not easy to know the full details of what has been put on the table and offered. When we published the story the response was that the UK was to pay for an inventory as a first step to securing the Tanzanian stockpile and putting it beyond economic use. This is not the information that is coming out from Tanzania though. Our information and information published In Tanzanian media is that the UK will pay for the inventory and also meet the full costs of preserving and storing the tusks for at least 10 years while elephant numbers in Tanzania are monitored to discover the impact of poaching on elephant populations. At the signing of the agreement the Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Lazaro Nyalandu said “the ivory stockpile will be preserved under scientific conditions for ten years as the government assesses the trend of elephant poaching and the population of endangered species in the country’s national parks and game reserves.” He went on to say that the UK government has agreed to fully fund the expense to preserve the country’s stockpiled ivory (137 tonnes) worth over USD80m. He said that currently scientists were working to establish the actual cost for preserving the tusks. “The scientists are conducting a research to establish the cost and age of the tusks to come up with technical advices on how best to preserve them. The UK has said that it will work in collaboration with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and the government to ensure that the exercise is successful,” he said. If this financial commitment to cover the cost of the ivory stockpile for the next 10 years is true then the fears of ivory campaigners in Tanzania are valid. There has been a successful campaign in Tanzania to persuade the government to destroy the ivory stockpile. The campaign has been spearheaded by conservationists and the tourism industry. One of the biggest arguments they had was the cost of storage of such a vast stockpile of dead elephant remains. If that cost is to be met by UK taxpayers then campaigners have lost a major point of their argument. The campaigners had come very close to success. Right up to before the London Conference the Tanzanian government were actively considering the destruction of the stockpile. But know with British financial help they are committing to protect the stockpile for at least 10 years. It is very difficult to get the actual details of this deal from UK authorities. We’ve submitted a Freedom of Information request for details of the deal but was told that there is no recorded information on the questions and concerns we have over the deal. As Freedom of Information requests covers recorded documents we were recommended to submit a Business as Usual request which we did. The result was basically just a reference to the written reply provided by Mark Simmonds MP that the UK are funding an inventory of the stockpile. So far the UK government have failed to deny that they are going to be funding the preservation and storage of 120 tonnes of ivory for 10 years. Read more:
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 08:47:33 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015