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(DOHA)—In an extraordinary,
unprecedented, and quite undiplomatic start to CITES CoP 15, a delegate
from Botswana moved during plenary to have Proposal 6 removed from the
Agenda. This proposal, submitted by Ghana, Mali, Kenya, Sierra Leone,
Rwanda, Congo Brazzaville and Liberia, seeks to prevent further ivory
trading and maintain the current level of CITES protection for
elephants for the next 20 years.
Botswana blithely argued that it was not within the powers of CITES to
introduce measures that might prevent Parties from making future
proposals to amend the Appendices – in this case, prevent future
downlistings from Appendix I to Appendix II – and that such a move
would undermine the sovereign rights of each member State. Of course,
at the 2007 CITES Meeting, Parties did, in fact, approve a nine year
moratorium on ivory trade from certain African elephant range States.
However, the Chair of the Plenary, on advice from the CITES
Secretariat, ruled that Proposal 6 was to remain on the agenda.
Botswana’s shameful move sent shockwaves throughout the meeting hall,
especially among the many delegates who remain appalled at the
proposals from Tanzania and Zambia to trade 111 tonnes of ivory from
their stockpiles to China and Japan.
In the hallways outside the Conference
room during a break, African delegates from across the continent
reiterated their strong opposition for any further trade in elephant
ivory. Here, Azizou El Hadj Issa, the Director of the office of forests
and natural resources in Benin (a small west African country with only
1,200 elephants left), expresses his opposition to the ivory trade and
calls on the world to support the many African countries working hard
to protect their elephants from poachers.
Clearly the Parties must ultimately
decide whether they want to see more high risk international ivory
shipments, which could threaten the lives of tens of thousands of
elephants across the continent or support measures that could reduce
poaching pressure, choke off demand for ivory and make the lives of
Africa’s elephants a little safer.
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