PLEASE READ THIS VERY CAREFULLY – IT COULD HAVE A SIGNIFICANT IMPACT ON WILD LION CONSERVATION. From time to time, CITES can request what is called a Periodic Review to determine whether certain species are “appropriately” listed on the Appendices. In July 2011, the CITES Animals Committee approved a Periodic review of lions, identifying Kenya and Namibia as the authors of the eventual report. As such reports are requested to be completed in a timeous fashion, requests for information to the lion Range States went out in October with a deadline for replies in December 2011. No report was forthcoming for many years, but now a draft has finally been submitted for consideration by the Animals Committee at the upcoming meeting in Veracruz, Mexico from April 28 to May 3, 2014. LionAid has accessed a copy of the report, and it is highly disappointing. The report, for example: • Only considers any trade in lion products from 1999-2008 – in other words information that is already six years old. • Mentions data that lions range across 30 African nations as per IUCN information published in 2008 based on conferences held in 2006 – such data is therefore eight years old. In reality, the true situation concerning lion distributions is as follows: Of the 49 continental African countries the lion is extinct in 25 countries, existing as small, scattered and highly vulnerable populations in eight countries, perhaps existing as unknown populations in two countries, and known to be present in 14 countries. This actual distribution of lions is very different than that presented in the report, and much more accurately reflects the current status of lions in Africa. • Received information from 15 lion range states ((Benin, Central African Republic, Cote D’Ivoire, Gabon, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe). Of those 15, lions are known to be extinct in Cote D’Ivoire and Gabon, virtually extinct in Malawi, Nigeria and Rwanda, and of unknown population size in South Sudan and Central African Republic, a nation currently beset with civil strife verging on civil war. In other words, only 8 range states of the 15 that replied have any semblance of viable lion populations within their borders. • Is full of internal consistencies because Namibia and Kenya have different views on the role of trophy hunting in lion conservation. • Constantly dismisses the role of commercial trade in the decline of lion populations while trophy hunting exports are clearly identified as the major aspect of commercial trade. The report only mentions in passing the great decline in western and central African lion populations and makes no recommendations. • Hardly mentions canned lion hunting, only mentioning that the issue is still being handled by the Supreme Court of Appeals – in other words the scenario from many years ago. That court case was decided in favour of the breeders in November 2010 with all the consequences we see today. Kenya and Namibia thus completely ignored this issue in the report, though they do go into some depth about lion trophy exports from South Africa, skimming over the origin of such trophies. • Concludes that the leading major threats across lion range are recognized by each lion range state to be habitat loss and retaliatory killing, and not international trade (including trophy hunting). In which case, why have Botswana and Zambia and Uganda placed either bans or moratoria on trophy hunting? It is notable that lion range states like Botswana, Burkina Faso, Chad, Ethiopia and Cameroon did not elect to participate. It is surprising that Kenya would contribute so inconsequentially to this report and allow inclusion of conflicting, clearly not factual and/or out of date statements. LionAid is preparing a carefully considered reply to this report. The draft still needs to be accepted by the Animals Committee, and it is hoped that by pointing out the many inconsistencies and factual failures of this report that it will be rejected. Otherwise it will be largely accepted that lions should stay on Appendix II of CITES, and this report, regardless of its shortcomings, will be taken as the most relevant opinion of the African lion range states on the negligible contribution of international trade to the decline of Africa’s lions. We will come back to you once this reply is finished, hopefully by tomorrow. We hope you will then join us in taking appropriate action by writing to the Chairman of the Animals Committee – Roberto Solano in the shortest order. Please stay tuned.
Posted on: Fri, 04 Apr 2014 23:03:46 +0000
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