An Italian family met with a bulky inheritance: tusks they had inherited from Zaire. What to do?
There is not a corner of the planet where the battle for the protection of threatened animals is not set by rules, bans, and even condemnations of the offenders. Today’s poachers definitely know the risks they run. But it was not always so: in colonial Africa, but also in the first decades of independence, it was not scandalous to see hanging in the living rooms of those who had “made the colonial” some heads of antelopes, or spreads of lion or leopard. It would happen that sometimes such a trophy would be given as a gift, which today would make an environmentalist shudder.
Since 1977, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) has prohibited the hunting, trafficking, transport, and sale of the many species that are at risk of extinction if not protected: crocodiles exterminated for their skins, rhinoceros hunted for their horn, or elephants for their ivory, are monitored closely.
We can now easily understand the embarrassment of an Italian family of Oristano, in Sardinia. In a time in the not too distant past, parent Giuseppe Mussi had legally acquired elephant tusks in Zaire. The man had worked in Congo, Chad, and Cameroon: all central African countries known for the beauty of their wildlife. But today, what had been a beautiful heritage to eventually pass on to offspring, becomes an obvious compromise, given the poaching that is decimating turtles, monkeys, lemurs, and even the African buffalo.
For the Sardinian family, there was no second thought: they called the Forestry Corps of Oristano to deliver this legacy, which now falls within the scope of the European directive EC 338/97, which lists the protected species of CITES in which the elephants appear prominently. What would the Italian Forest Service make of this? The tusks, which even included finely carved pieces, would end up in flames, and not elsewhere! Europe banned the ivory trade on the perimeter of its 28 member states.
The conscience of the Mussi family aptly reminds us that the struggle to prevent the extinction of species engages individuals, communities, and states, and that the efforts of all will ensure the planet functioning to protect those with a delicate and interdependent nature. That the disappearance of an elephant in Gabon may have repercussions in Canada is no longer on the order of absurdity. Just look at the causes and consequences of climate change. We are far from a victory in this fight.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature said this week that at least 1,338 rhinos had been poached in Africa in 2015. This is a record figure since South Africa banned trade in rhino horn in 2008. Over the past two years, said the report of this organization based in Switzerland, poaching has declined in Kenya. And in 2015, for the first time since 2008, the number of rhinos killed in South Africa has also decreased.
South Africa has the largest number of rhinos on the planet. But the species is threatened by the strong demand for horn in Asia, where it is alleged to have medicinal properties. The horn of the rhinoceros, the banal keratin of our fingernails, has acquired a monetary value by hearsay in Asia. On the black market, it goes for the prohibitive price of approximately 60,000 dollars per kilo, which generates many covetousness ideas from mafias on all sides.
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