Paris (AFP)
France denounces the "resistance" of the European Union to completely ban the ivory trade at the next United Nations Conference on Threatened Species in August in Geneva, denounced Tuesday his delegate.
According to Yann Wehrling, France's ambassador for the environment, who will lead the French delegation to the meeting of the UN Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), "Europe will vote against the motions tabled by African countries to demand a return to the total ban of this trade ".
Despite public opinion favorable to the protection of elephants, heavily targeted by poaching, "there is real resistance in Europe to close the ivory market," he said.
The Community position has been adopted behind closed doors in the Council of the 28 Ministers of the Environment. The European Parliament is neither consulted nor called to speak on the subject.
Only five of the 28 Member States prohibit this trade, he says: France (since 2016), Luxembourg, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Belgium.
The United States, in June 2016 and China (late 2017), the main market for white gold elephants, have also closed their ivory market.
Mr. Wehrling recalls that a "quarter of Africa's elephants have been slaughtered in the last decade": about 30,000 heads, hunted for their defenses, were killed during this period out of a total population estimated at less than one half a million.
Traffic, estimated at $ 20 billion a year, according to Cites, is the fourth most lucrative illegal trade after weapons, counterfeiting and human beings. Elephants, with rhinos, are the first targets.
"Beyond elephants and ivory, we know that smuggling benefits criminal networks and some terrorist networks," says Wehrling, who regrets the EU's "reluctance" on the subject.
Four motions, filed by some thirty African countries, will be presented at the Cites (17-25 August) to re-register elephants in Annex 1 of the Convention, which means "total ban" on trade.
The pachyderms found there in 1989 were partially ironed in 1997 in Annex 2 (boxed trade) for those in southern Africa whose populations were considered sufficiently robust. "But since the poaching resumed on a large scale: there is worse situation than to divide the same species between two annexes", under two different regimes, insists Yann Wehrling for which, the only urgency, is to "maintain a commitment very strong protection ".
? 2019 AFP