Reporter’s diary

Press, 31 May 1982, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Hard row...

IN WHAT looks like a long uphill battle, the World Wildlife Fund and the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources is to open a Tokyo office, called TRAFFIC Japan. TRAFFIC (which stands for Trade Records Analysis of Flora and Fauna in Commerce) Japan owes its existence to the Japanese Government’s decision to accept CITES (the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) in 1980. Japan is one of the leading traffickers in endangered species and the man in charge of the new TRAFFIC Japan office (Mr Tom Milliken, a Japanese-speaking American conservationist) admits that strict enforcement of CITES “presents a formidable challenge.” That could be something of an understatement.

Consumer society

JAPAN, on a per capita basis, is the world's No.l consumer of wildlife. Onethird of world trade in birds involves Japan; Japan is the world’s largest consumer of ivory; almost all of the musk and most of the tortoiseshell in world trade is consumed by Japan; it is the second largest trader of furskins of wild species, and is a leading importer of shells, coral, reptile skins, primates, butterflies, and tropical fish. Mr Milliken says that CITES is likely to take some time to put a stop to Japan’s fur consumption, which has continued to boom, in spite of the CITES agreement in 1980. The crafty Japanese, it seems, were able to stockpile fur and skins, before the country accepted CITES, which, Mr Milliken admits ruefully, means that endangered species will continue to be traded for some

time. As if that were not enough, the Japanese Government has protected much of its trade in wildlife by listing no fewer than nine exceptions, allowing trade to continue for listed plants and animals. Since then, it has added two more lists of exceptions, which include three species of whales, three of sea turtles, three of monitor lizards, the saltwater crocodile and the Himalayan musk deer; “Public awareness of endangered species issues is very low in Japan,” Mr Milliken says. He is going to be a busy man. Vanishing forests

WHILE nowhere near the big-league consumers, like the Japanese, New Zealanders have no cause for complacency, according to a team of Wildlife Service officers. The seven officers have been surveying the country’s'fauna and are producing an inventory of “sites of special wildlife interest." Since beginning their work in 1973, they have covered almost two-thirds of New Zealand. The idea is to record the survey data in a National Habitat Register, which can then be used for establishing protected areas, thereby preserving the habitat of species representative of these areas. Dwindling numbers of kiwis, bittern, kaka, kokako, and parakeets, because of the increase in land clearing and land drainage have been recorded by the officers. Some habitats surveyed at the beggining of the inventory have already disappeared, mostly to forestry and agriculture,

and the officers are also concerned about the continuing loss, at an alarming rate, of forest and wetland remnants. New chapel ST PETER’S Anglican Church, Granity, originally built as a mission hall in 1900 and transformed and enlarged into a church in 1907, has a new chapel. On Thursday evening, the new chapel of St Peter’s, which was formerly the vicarage, will be dedicated at a special service. The bell hanging at the church has the inscription “Hesketh,” which mystifies parishioners and clergy alike and they would like to know if anyone knows of its origin. Dedicated

THE BATTLE zone around the Falkland Islands is hardly the ideal place for writing learnedly and at length on the subject of grassland, feed and cereal crops. But Petty Officer Brian Dalton, sat at his desk on board H.M.S. Hermes and calmly took his agricultural examination with the deafening sound of Harriers and helicopters ringing in his ears. Mr Dalton, aged 39, a father of two,, from Yeovil, Somerset, is an air engineering mechanic who is normally busy keeping the Sea Harriers in peak readiness, but he took time out to sit his second-year agricultural exam- His papers had been locked a way on board until the allotted time and he sat the exam in the ship’s “quiet room."