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Saturday September 10, 2011
Local News

'Burning ivory will not stop poaching'

By BILHAM KIMATI, 9th September 2011 @ 22:00,



THE Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Mr Ezekiel Maige, believes that destroying stockpiles of ivory as a symbolic protest against poaching is wrong.

The move, he says, will never stop poachers in their tracks. It also causes a loss to the government.

Poachers can only be controlled through better coordination, incisive use of better equipment and other stringent measures.

Such measures include enlisting the services of Tanzania Wildlife Service (TWS), whose establishment is envisaged.

Tanzania Wildlife Service is expected to become effective early next financial year, Mr Maige said.

The government has set aside 500m/- this financial year for groundwork towards the launching of the unit.

The outfit will be an autonomous state-owned establishment whose detail will be to protect and coordinate sustainable use of the wildlife resources.

TWS will help address a number of challenges including acquisition of working tools like inspection helicopters, communication facilities and other requisite equipment.

There will also be a deployment of a crack squad of better-trained game wardens," according to the minister.

"The Wildlife Division needs at least 5bn/- annually for requisite provisions. The average collection is 35bn/- which is given to the Treasury for disbursement and only 4bn/- is returned for wildlife operations.

The amount (4bn/-) is not enough to combat poaching and to train and hire competent game wardens.

But after the establishment of the wildlife service unit, more funds will be generated, a factor that will usher in greater efficiency, according to the minister.

He gave the example of Tanzania National Parks (Tanapa) that generates 90bn/- annually and has the mandate to spend 82bn/- with only 8bn/- being handed over to the Treasury.

He said that with the inauguration of the wildlife service, unit funds would be secured from various sources for the purchase of surveillance helicopters, durable vehicles, employment of more personnel and meet other financial demands.

As for the country's bid to seek permission from CITES for one-off sale of ivory, the minister suspected that the negotiation team did not do enough to lobby with member states. This move should have been accomplished at least two years before the meeting.

Meanwhile, academicians and stockholders in wildlife conservation have have sided with the minister in opposing the practice of burning stockpiles of confiscated ivory.

They have warned that the move would not stop the illicit trade in ivory or stop poaching.

Some academicians propose vigorous enforcement of wildlife protection laws in addition to fulfilment of a global agreement on the penalties that should be imposed on poachers and traders in illegal ivory and other government trophies.

The idea is to minimize illegal killing of elephants and rhinos. Dr Marcellina Chijoriga, who is Dean at the University of Dar es Salaam Business School, said that ivory was not like cocaine which poses health risks to human life.

Therefore, it should be used wisely as a source of national income. What is currently lacking is proper handling, he said.

Certainly, burning stockpiles of valuable ivory is not the best way to deal with poaching, he added.

"Rejection of requests by Zambia and Tanzania to hold one-off sales of their ivory stockpiles at a United Nations species trade meeting in Doha, Qatar, in March last year, may have been a hitch but it was not the end of the bid.

"Authorities in Tanzania need to tighten law enforcement systems along with other corrective measures in a quest to control the buildup of stockpiles of impounded ivory," Dr Chijoriga said.

She emphasized on the need for the country's negotiation team to present stronger and more convincing arguments to the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) so that Tanzania is allowed to sell its ivory stockpiles.

"For example, there should be detailed data on ivory and horns collected from elephants and rhinos that die from natural causes and trophies seized from poachers and illegal traders.

"It is wrong to burn ivory stockpiles in the misguided belief that the move would stop poaching," Dr Chijoriga said.

She added that it was not prudent to complain that fellow East African member states did not support Tanzania's bid at the Doha CITES meeting. The best way forward is to make enough preparations and present convincing arguments, she said.

Dr John Baitani, a Programme Officer at the University of Dar es Salaam Business School, challenged the international community to come up with better ways of taming buyers in various consumer countries who fuel poaching.

He said that it was possible to hunt down poachers in national parks and game reserves in Tanzania and other countries such as Zambia but there should also be a mechanism through which illegal traders would be apprehended and prosecuted.

Currently, he said, illegal traders offer 1,800 US dollars per kilogramme of ivory. This, he said, was an attractive price that fuels poaching.

Two years before the Doha meeting, Tanzanian authorities appealed to CITES, the global agency that imposed a strict ban on trade in ivory and rhino horns, to temporarily lift the moratorium to enable the country to sell 89.8 tonnes of ivory.

Zablon Otieno, a consultant, called for a common voice on the international community to stop the illicit trade in ivory.

He recalled seeing in Bujumbura, Burundi, ivory being sold openly because the move was not prohibited.

"Such loopholes propel poaching in nearby national parks like Katavi. Cross border activities are not controlled and any ivory consignment that finds its way to Bujumbura would definitely reach the notorious markets in Asia.

Burundi, which does not have a single national park, has no reason to impose ban on ivory trade," Otieno said. Mr Othman Mjema, a former professional hunter, accused some of the local national park rangers of being part of the problem.

"Some of them do not have national interests at heart. They collude with poachers who kill rhinos and elephants," he said. However, with modern communication systems like the Global Positioning System (GPS), one would not expect poachers to operate with impunity.

"When poachers are in hunting in a national park, corrupt game wardens pretend to be busy on patrol heading in the wrong direction," Mr Mjema asserted.

He asked the authorities to come up with better strategies in a bid to dismantle the networks of poachers who now use high-tech communication. "These days buyers and sellers do not have to meet physically. They use the internet," he said.

According to last year's annual report by the world's largest database on ivory seizures known as the Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS), the illicit trade in ivory, increased in volume between 2004 and 2009.

The watchdog organization maintained that the fear of putting ivory on the market would stimulate demand, not satisfy demand, and that the situation in Africa would get even worse.

The UN body that oversees trade in threatened wildlife (CITES) rejected bid last year by Tanzania and Zambia to sell their stockpiles to Japan and China.

Tanzania wanted to sell 89.8 tonnes of ivory, while Zambia had sought to sell its 21 tonnes mainly because the stockpiles were too costly to maintain.

The CITES Secretariat rejected the requests suggesting that poaching and illegal trade be controlled locally.

A former Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Dr Ladislaus Komba, said: "We are sitting on a treasure (ivory) that we are not allowed to sell. We could help the poor, build schools and roads from the proceeds," he said.

Trade in ivory trade was banned in 1989 but two one-off sales were allowed in 1999 and 2008.

The last permitted sale of ivory in 2008 saw Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe releasing stocks.

typical government, they have never ran a success business and do not know how to make money, only how to spend other peoples money....What a waste!!!!

I thought they burned it to keep the price up on whatever was stolen out of the stockpile...

If any Government Agency, Wildlife Group or UN was actually serious about Ivory or for that matter Rhino horn, they would go after the shops that have it! No market? No poaching!
It would appear the agenda is less or no hunting