Elephants endangered

Press, 10 April 1980, Page 27

Elephants endangered

Bv

GEOFFREY LEAN

Zaire and several other African countries are centres of an illegal ivory trade which is endangering elephants all over the continent, according to an authoritative new report. The report has been written for the world’s leading wildlife organisation, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (1.U.C.N.). by Mr lain Douglas-Hamilton, an exp e r t on elephants. Extracts are about to be published by the union’s “Bulletin.”

It says Zaire has long been the most important single source of ivory in Africa, most of it smuggled out of the country.

. Although elephant hunting was banned in 1976 and President Mobutu ordered a moratorium on ivory exports two years later, these moves had little effect on poaching and smuggling. The report claims that four members of the political bureau of the president’s party and a member of the President’s own family are among those behind the traffic.

Monthly' shipments of ivory are flown by C-130 cargo planes to South Africa, and ivory is also smuggled out through

Uganda. the Central African Republic. Burundi, and the Congo. The Congo itself exports abut 50 tons of ivory each year, the report goes on. Most of it is illegal in origin and smuggled across the river Congo in canoes from Zaire. Ivory also reaches the country bywater from the Central African Republic and the Sudan. The Central African Republic was a big centre of the illegal trade in the days of Emperor Bokassa.

Most of the ivoryexported from Gabon is illegal or accompanied by fraudulent papers, and false documents also seem to be widely issued in Cameroon.

The secretary-general of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, (Mr Peter Sand) which regulates the wildlife trade, names Burundi as another important centre of the illegal traffic.

“Tons of ivory are shipped weekly' on Sabena flights from Bujumbura to Brussels,” Mr Sand said. “Most of the ivory is probably poached and smuggled out of Zaire, Kenya, and Tanzania.” The ivory is given export permits from Burundi. although the country has virtually no elephants of its own. Under the convention,

no ivory can be traded unless covered by export permits from its country of origin, and these cannot be granted if the trade endangers the country’s elephant population. Zaire is a member of the convention, but many of the other countries involved in the illegal trade are not. According to the union's “Bulletin.” not one country in West or Central Africa is exporting ivory in conformity with the convention provisions. A recent examination of ivory export and re-export certificates from 35 countries showed that more than half were invalid. The ivory trade has boomed in the last decade. The price of ivory has multiplied more than ten times in the last decade, and world imports — only 100 tons a year in the early 1950 s — have reached 1000 tons, their highest level for 60 years. Hong Kong and Japan import four-fifths of this. Much of the world's ivory trade is quite legitimate, but the illegal trade draws heavily on poaching. Villagers can earn a year’s normal income from the sale of just one kilogram of ivory, and one tusk can easily weigh ten times that amount. There are about 1.300,000 African elephants left and the species is not threatened with ex-

tinction. But the population is declining alarmingly, and the report blames poaching as the most important short-term threat to the survival of the majority of Africa's elephants. The union is considering approaching the heads of State of African countries involved in the illegal trade to ask for their personal commitment to ending it. It is also thinking of establishing quotas for each exporting country. Copyright, 19S0, L.O.S.