- Endangered species: Two leopards from Arabia are born in captivity
- Biodiversity: Cote to trade in 'white gold'
- Fangs: DNA reveals the great cartels of illegal ivory trafficking in Africa
Eboraria, the art of carving ivory, has been part of human culture from prehistory to the present day. Oriental artisans are famous for sculpting delicate and laborious pieces of elephant fang in workshops that follow an ancient tradition. But in the price paid for these figures and beads, the survival value of this great mammal is not included.
The trade in such coveted crafts and poaching hunt him in Asia and in Africa. And despite the warnings, we still wear it. Just a week ago, a Spanish tourist was arrested at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi (Kenya) for owning an ivory bracelet. A quick trial and a fine of 9,000 euros allowed him to continue with his trip. It was "a gift" that I had received several decades ago, according to the EFE agency. Its trade is not prohibited in Europe if it is prior to 1990, but in the African country, which in these cases can only prove that the material comes from an elephant and does not allow its possession.
For Shruti Suresh, lawyer and member of the Environmental Research Agency (EIA), the Spanish case has no excuse. " Tourists should know that buying or owning ivory can be illegal in some of these countries . The laws and policies of the countries visited must be respected," he says. The activist regrets that the problem of the transit of ivory pieces, provided by Kenyan law, does not apply in countries such as Vietnam. "A gap in Vietnamese legislation is that it does not penalize the illegal ivory trade that weighs less than two kilos," he says. Suresh
'White gold'
The also called "white gold" can be purchased in countries like Spain if it is accompanied by a CITES certificate that guarantees its origin, unless the piece is prior to March 3, 1947. In this case, the document is not needed provided that its age can be demonstrated, through the assessment of an expert antique dealer. And there is the trap that favors its illegal sale, as denounced this week at the 18th Conference of the Parties (CoP18) of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) held in Geneva, Switzerland.
"The ivory trade is a scam," says the Kenyan campaign that requires the African elephant to be included as an endangered species in the CITES Appendix and avoid poaching. The African savanna elephant ( Loxodonta africana ) and the jungle elephant ( Loxodonta cyclotis ) are only considered vulnerable species according to the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species. Its Asian relative ( Elephas maximus ), which includes populations from Sri Lanka, India and Sumatra, is listed as an endangered species.
One of the important points to be discussed by the 183 members participating in CoP18 in Geneva is the proposal for the urgent closure of national ivory markets . The CITES convention already prohibited international sale in 1998, but this rule has no jurisdiction at the national level. The big question is whether Japan, which has the largest legal ivory market in the world, will close this business. They are not alone, the European Union is still reluctant to end this trade in its territory.
The problem is that there are links between what is understood by legal ivory trade and poaching of elephants and Japan and Europe contribute to this. For this reason, the African Elephant Coalition, formed by 32 countries of this continent, requests that national ivory markets around the world be closed. They are joined by more than a dozen environmental institutions, including WWF, Greenpeace, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA-International) and Avaaz. The latter presents the signature of 1.2 million people who support the initiative for Japan to close the ivory business.
In places like Vietnam, organized traffic networks boost illegal wildlife trade globally. A report published Monday by EIA attests to it. In 600 seizures made in the Asian country, 105 tons of ivory have been confiscated. This equals 15,779 dead elephants. And it is not the only animal that suffers this slaughter. To the data we must add the horns, skins and bones of 610 rhinos, 228 tigers and 65,510 pangolins. In Africa, from 2007 to 2014, 144,000 elephants were killed. Every day, every 15 minutes one of these beautiful animals dies.
Traditional medicine
Traditional Chinese medicine also has an important weight in the trade of products that have an impact on the illegal trafficking of species. Tigers, leopards, rhinos and pangolins are just some of the species threatened by the continued use of body parts in traditional Chinese medicine. "Eliminating them from the official pharmacopoeia is just a small step that China could take to eliminate the threat of poaching and trafficking in body parts such as tiger bone and rhino horn," says Debbie Banks, campaign leader of EIA
However, he warns, "very few people know that China has a legal trade with a leopard bone license," one of the most trafficked Asian big cats, with more than 5,000 deaths since 2000. As long as China continues to allow the manufacture of wine and leopard bone pills, "it will be impossible to reduce the demand for leopards and continue to push them into extinction"
Other threats to wildlife
In Geneva, 57 proposals have been submitted to review the level of protection CITES grants to each species threatened by international trade. Among them are the giraffe, the crystal frogs, the tree tarantulas or the revered pheasant of China. There are also tree species such as cedars or African padauk.
"Spain will strongly support how many decisions are proposed to help stop the loss of biodiversity," says a statement from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition of our country. In Spain, we want to limit the national ivory trade and establish quotas for trophies for hunting leopards, black rhinos or the Himalayan marjor.
Among other proposals, specific actions are studied for the African lion, the jaguar, the cheetah, the great Asian cats, the great apes, sturgeons, spatula fish, eels, seahorses, the gray parrot, the land turtles and the galapagos.
In Spain, ivory traffic cases are "relatively few," Luis Suarez, responsible for species from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in Spain, assures EL MUNDO. "Most seizures have more to do with the attempt to sell imported ivory pieces as hunting trophies," he says. Sometimes, he adds, the ivory pieces already treated are tried to sell as if they were old, so he insists on "improving the control and dating systems of the pieces to avoid fraudulent sales." In this sense, in our country a method based on carbon-14 dating is being implemented to analyze the age of ivory pieces.
The European Union proposes to modify the level of protection of 12 species, such as the mako shark, guitar fish, the geko tokay, two Asian newts and three species of holoturias. Woods to preserve include rosewoods, bubingas and African teak. It is intended that "trade in species be sustainable and contribute to the global conservation of biodiversity," says the ministerial text.
Different countries, different actions
The rest of the countries propose different actions. For the elephant, Zambia suggests reducing its protection (passing it from Appendix I to II) to allow trade in ivory with importers that could not re-export it and authorize non-commercial trophies. Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe consider the possibility of maintaining trade in ivory registered in their states to importers verified by CITES. If this is approved, the global demand for ivory could increase and with it illegal traffic.
On the contrary, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Kenya, Liberia, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan, Syria and Togo want to increase the protection of the elephants of Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe from Appendix II to I. The disagreements between the countries in which the elephant lives do not facilitate their protection and delay decisions that were already raised at CoP17.
While the white rhinoceros continues to die at the hands of poachers, some countries want to review their trade, take stock, facilitate the trophy market or allow the sale of live specimens. Giraffes, however, that lose their habitat by leaps and bounds might be on track to improve their defense. The Central African Republic, Chad, Kenya, Mali, Niger and Senegal want to include it in Appendix II to stop its decline.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
Know more- Science and Health
- science
ScienceTwo meters and 400 kilos: discover in France the monumental bone of a 50-ton dinosaur
Interview Lewis Dartnell, astrobiologist: "The Earth made man and now it is the other way around"
Science and Health The danger of moisturizers for breast milk