Feature

Crack down on domestic ivory markets in Africa needs major boost

Eight months after African countries announced a continent-wide action plan to crack down on their domestic ivory markets – the single most important factor in the international ivory trade – unregulated markets continue trading ivory openly throughout Africa, according to new surveys by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network.

TRAFFIC and WWF hope that members of the Standing Committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), meeting in Geneva, today, will give a major boost to African elephant conservation by strengthening the action plan agreed by parties to CITES during their most recent meeting held in Bangkok last October.

The tusks of between 4,000-12,000 elephants are needed to meet the annual production needs of local ivory carvers in Africa each year, and virtually all of this ivory is from illegal, unsustainable sources.

The CITES action plan calls on all African Elephant range States to either strictly control the trade from carvers and manufacturers through retailers to end-use consumers, or shut the trade down altogether.

Egypt, which has no elephants in the wild, has harboured one of Africa’s largest domestic ivory markets in the past. Though less thriving than seven years ago, it still poses a major threat to effective elephant conservation efforts.

A newly released report by TRAFFIC, No Oasis: Egyptian ivory trade in 2005, documents the availability of more than 10,000 worked ivory products in three Egyptian cities in March-April 2005. While this is half the level documented in 1998, the trade still represents the equivalent of between 310 and 875 elephants.

Egypt is not an African Elephant Range State and so is not targeted under the CITES action plan. However TRAFFIC and WWF urge the CITES Standing Committee to add Egypt to the list of countries under review.

“The government of Egypt is certainly making progress on its own, but accountability to the CITES oversight process will mark an important step in speeding things along,” said Tom Milliken, Director of TRAFFIC’s programme in Africa.

“Law enforcement data from Egypt also indicates that over 80 per cent of the raw and worked ivory seized from 2000 onwards has originated from Sudan, a country where, earlier this year, the domestic ivory trade was reported to be on the increase.”

TRAFFIC and WWF are also calling for a suspension of all wildlife trade in CITES-listed species to or from Mozambique if it does not take steps to effectively control its ivory markets. TRAFFIC researchers documented more than 500 ivory products for sale in the duty-free departure lounge of Maputo’s international airport earlier this month. This traffic is in flagrant violation of CITES, and the Mozambican authorities have failed to act in the past.

“Mozambique has ignored numerous opportunities to stop this violation of CITES, but continues to allow illegal ivory trade with impunity," said said Milliken. "It’s time to take decisive action and send a real message."

The TRAFFIC survey in Ethiopia earlier this spring found a major reduction in the scale of the country’s ivory trade with only five of 82 shops surveyed selling a total of 78 ivory products.

This is remarkable as Ethiopia has been one of Africa's biggest unregulated ivory markets. Earlier last year TRAFFIC found over 3,500 ivory products on sale in the country.

“Ethiopia deserves to be commended for undertaking a range of actions, including enhanced law enforcement both at border points and within the marketplace and improved reporting to and participation in ETIS, the Elephant Trade Information System,” Milliken said.

“Concerted effort since early 2004 to crack down on the domestic ivory trade demonstrates how relatively small investment in capacity-building can help to leverage a significant enforcement effort," said Dr. Peter J. Stephenson of the WWF African Elephant Programme.

"Ethiopia’s coordinated action serves as an excellent example for other countries to follow."

TRAFFIC and WWF are willing to provide similar help to other states who need support in building their capacity to implement the CITES action plan and to close down illegal domestic ivory markets.

More information:

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) regulates international trade in more than 30,000 species of wild animals and plants. The Convention is currently applied in 167 nations, including all the African Elephant range States except Angola.

For further information:
Joanna Benn, Communications Manager
WWF Global Species Programme
Tel: +41 22 364 9093

Reproduced with permission from WWF. © 2002 WWF-- World Wide Fund For Nature. (Formerly World Wildlife Fund). All rights reserved.

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