Ivory Politics

Ivory’s contributions to the past and its significance in the future eclipse any unreasonable or ineffective restraints on its trade or movement.

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@BantuHolomisa THANK YOU FOR INCLUDING ME IN THE FOLLOW-UP TO YOUR RELEASE OF THE UDM MANIFESTO.

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#Election2020results #ElectionResults2020 #democracy

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We hope that a non-governmental sustained use organization volunteers to take on the task of exploring organizing a meeting to discuss this suggestion.

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A customs union would permit trade between interested sellers — say the SADEC countries in terms of rhinos and elephants — and interested buyers, say countries in Eastern Asia.

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There is a feeling that CITES restrictions based on biological population counts is insufficient to balance trade with the interests of the people who live among the animals.

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Such a meeting of interested parties would be implementing Paragraph 3 of Article XIV of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Series. Paragraph 3 allows parties to create a customs union for various listed species, both terrestrial and marine.

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One keen observer of the CITES scene over a long period of time suggests that the sustainable use coalition explore the possibility and feasibility of a new wildlife trade treaty based on biological criteria and the principles of sustainable use.

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Smaller countries are given lip service, financial aide, but little substantive support.

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CITES seems broken to many observers. It is now totally owned by the major animal rights groups and the Secretariat is totally in the bag to the United States, EU, Canada, and several other major countries.

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To get the funding, the Secretariat said it will issue requests to all signatories following CoP 18. It is pretty clear that Israel will have to pony up the money for the woolly mammoth ivory laundering in order to continue the political face-saving.

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Then the Secretariat explained how it would go about doing such a study. It said that subject to available funding, it would hire a consultant to undertake a comprehensive study to report in one year on its findings.

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Eventually, Committee 1 of CITES approved by consensus the idea of the Secretariat conducting a study on the extent of mammoth ivory acting as a cover for banned elephant ivory. It was the CITES powers giving Israel a polite way to save itself from an embarrassing defeat.

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The Russians also fiercely opposed to any restrictions on wooly mammoth trading, did not even bother meeting with Israel on the grounds that they remained opposed to CITES having anything to do with mammoth ivory.

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Following the Committee chair’s directive that Israel needed to discuss the issue before a final (negative) decision would be made the next day, Israel reached out to Canada who maintained no study was needed on the laundering of woolly mammoth ivory.

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Knowing that its proposal to have the extinct woolly mammoth listed in Appendix II — an aspect of CITES that mandates strict controls limiting use — was fiercely and overwhelming opposed, Israel decided to withdraw its original proposal.

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The Israel woolly mammoth drama continued on Monday, August 25, 2019 at the 18th meeting of the parties signatory to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

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What will change the current environment? When enough governments, pressured by real conservationists and tired of NGOs using money to set wildlife policy, reclaim their sovereign right to manage their own resources in cooperation and coordination with other governments.

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Is CITES just a charade, then, are all the actors in Geneva participating in a kabuki dance that only they can see? The answer is probably yes.

Will anything be done to get the organization back on the track it enjoyed in the 1980s? Probably not.

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The bottom line of all this talk, the avalanche of paper, and the forest of letters and numbers to refer to how previous meetings have dealt with an issue, wildlife is shrinking against the pressure of growing human populations and changing climatic conditions.