Contrary to many media reports, the news for elephants was generally positive.
CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) is an international agreement between governments that aims to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival. Every two to three years, member states meet to review the implementation of the agreement.
Key members of the Save the Elephants team traveled to this year’s CITES meeting in Thailand to advocate for elephants.
Save the Elephants’ founder, Iain Douglas-Hamilton, shares his round-up from the conference:
The conference opened with inspiring speeches from Achim Steiner, the head of UNEP, than from John Scanlon the Secretary General of CITES, and finally a video from Prince William, who all highlighted the world awareness of the elephant and ivory crisis and the need to unite to tackle it. For elephants there were some major achievements for CITES this time round.
A new mandate states that DNA samples should be taken on future ivory seizures that are larger than 500kg, and there will be a requirement for all parties to CITES to report on ivory stockpiles once a year. Tanzania’s wise withdrawal of their proposal to sell their ivory stockpile led to a much friendlier atmosphere between delegates from the African elephant range states who have differing philosophies and who have clashed in the past over the question of sales of stockpiled ivory. Even the discussion of whether or not there ever could be an ivory trade was postponed and the ban remains in place as before.
It was also decided that the CITES Secretary-General will cooperate with the UN Office of Drugs & Crime regarding illegal killing of elephants, illegal trade in ivory and national security implications. A further proposal to take concerns about ivory poaching to the Security Council, especially in relation to national security implications was turned down. The idea had been to bring the matter to the attention of the UN general assembly
However, we were worried that demand reduction had been omitted from the list of recommendations, when many parties considered it a vital key to secure a future for elephants. I made an intervention to that effect to the CoP that:
“It is broadly recognized by the scientific community that, at the global level, demand for ivory is the principal driver of the illegal killing of elephants. World demand for ivory exceeds the current supply of ivory from elephants, and the continental population is now in decline. We know from experience that large numbers in some areas are no protection for the species. Unless demand is reduced, no amount of increases in law enforcement on their own are likely to succeed. We urge all parties to unite in supporting ivory demand reduction and to initiate public awareness campaigns to reduce demand, to stop the killing.”
In the event, public awareness campaigns aimed at reducing the demand for ivory have now been endorsed by the plenary of CITES. Now that CITES has given this endorsement we can continue with many others in building a coalition of individuals, scientists, NGOs, institutions and governments to take united international action to reduce demand for ivory.
The killing of elephants is not letting up. It is vital that the world does not stand by and let it go on.
A blow-by-blow account of the conference from Save the Elephants Ivory Crisis Strategist Dr Kathleen Gobush can be found here