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EU Partially Lifts Suspension on Tanzania Elephant Trophy Imports

By Marco Pani

Editor’s note: Marco Pani is an international consultant with nearly 30 years of experience in wildlife conservation and sustainable utilization and has been engaged in the ongoing developments in Tanzania. Pani assisted Tanzanian authorities in getting the EU’s Scientific Review Group to visit Tanzania and assess both the lion and elephant populations for importation purposes. He is a member of the IUCN CEESP/SSC Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group (SULi) and Advisor to Conservation Force.


On 21 June 2017, at its 79th meeting, the Scientific Review Group of the European Union conveyed a partial positive opinion on the import of elephant trophies from Tanzania to the CITES Committee of the EU. The committee endorsed that opinion on 22 June. This means that elephant trophies from specific areas in Tanzania are now imported to the EU.

The positive opinion is related to four of the six main ecosystems that form the elephant range in Tanzania; specifically: Serengeti, Tarangire-Manyara, Katavi-Rukwa and Selous-Mikumi, with the following conditions:

- Only trophy animals taken from the following ‘ecosystems’: Serengeti [15], Tarangire-Manyara [10], Katavi-Rukwa [13] and Selous-Mikumi [36];
- quotas allocated at ecosystem level do not exceed >0.3% of managed population;
- trophy animals are male (tusks >20kg or 160cm in length);
- quota reviewed annually and adjusted, as necessary, to take into account most recent population data, and
- SRG opinion is reviewed at regular intervals as and when new information becomes available (or at least every two years.
For Ruaha-Rungwa and Malagarasi-Muyovozi (and Burigi-Biharamulo) ecosystems the opinion is maintained as negative.

This opinion came after a lengthy process. The SRG’s negative opinion for African elephant trophies originating from Tanzania was formulated at the 72nd Meeting of the SRG on 2 July 2015.
In August 2015, the Tanzanian authorities provided extensive documentation to the EU on the status of elephants, including an updated non-detriment finding, and formally invited an EU delegation to Tanzania in order to get first-hand information and to visit some areas relevant to elephant conservation.

In September 2015, a Tanzanian delegation made a presentation in Brussels at an SRG meeting on the status of elephants and lions. As the SRG maintained its negative opinion on elephants, the Tanzanian authorities produced updated information on elephants to the EU in January 2016 and reiterated the invitation to the EU to visit Tanzania.

In April 2016, the EU, although not changing its opinion on the import of elephant trophies, acknowledged the invitation from Tanzania for a fact-finding mission in the country and confirmed its positive opinion on the import of lion trophies. Moreover, in June 2016, Tanzania produced a comprehensive non-detriment finding (NDF) on lion.

Between 19-27 August 2016, after due preparations, a delegation of three experts of the EU visited Tanzania to see first-hand the challenges Tanzania faces in conserving its wildlife and, more specifically, with the primary purpose of following-up on discussions that had taken place within the Scientific Review Group (SRG) and in exchanges with the Tanzanian Wildlife Authorities regarding the sustainability and management of lion and elephant trophy hunting. The mission was hosted by the Tanzanian Wildlife Division and the Tanzanian Wildlife Management Authority (TAWA) and was organized and funded by the European Commission through the Environmental Technical Assistance and Information Exchange Facility (TAIEF). The mission included a field visit to the Selous Game Reserve accompanied by selected officials from the Wildlife Division, TAWA and staff from the Tanzanian Wildlife Research Unit (TAWIRI). Additional meetings and site visits were organized at the district level, where meetings were held with representatives from Wildlife Management Areas, the Tanzania Hunting Operators Association (TAHOA), district game officers and village leaders.

The mission report, including detailed findings on elephant and lion management and on tourist hunting administration, was discussed at the SRG meeting of 21 June 2017, as mentioned above, and led to the partial reopening of the import of elephant trophies from Tanzania into the EU and further confirmation of the positive opinion on import of lion sport-hunted trophies. (Tanzania disagrees with the maintenance of the negative opinion on Ruaha-Rungwa, one of the largest elephant populations in the country.)

Overall, the reopening of trophy imports, although partial, must be considered as a very positive move, even if the EU market has always been very limited. Despite the very limited quota, there is a need to provide incentives to rural communities and to reverse the status of 56 hunting blocks totaling more than 88,000 km2, that safari operators returned to the Wildlife Division due to the prolonged crisis due to the US and EU trophy import suspension. These blocks, advertised recently for re-allocation , are in danger of being converted to agro-pastoral land, possibly leading to the loss of key habitat for lions and elephants and more cases of human-wildlife conflict.
The bottom line is that this positive opinion from the EU will put the Tanzanian government and the safari operators in the position to provide increased protection for elephants, and the communities in the WMAs closest to the hunting areas can obtain a share in the revenues of the hunt, thereby increasing the level of tolerance toward wildlife.

Hi Karl,
Do you have a link to that article? I'd like to share it among some friends who aren't on AR. Thanks.