Business Weekly (Zimbabwe)

Zim pushes to sell ivory stockpile

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ZIMBABWE is continuing to push for internatio­nal support for selling off its stockpile of elephant ivory and rhino horn, saying the revenue is needed to fund conservati­on efforts.

Funding for the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authority comes largely from tourism-related activity, which has virtually evaporated during the Covid-19 pandemic, leaving the authority with shortages of staff, equipment, and funds for communitie­s living adjacent to wildlife.

But critics say allowing the sale of the 136 tonnes of elephant ivory and rhino horn that Zimbabwe is holding (mostly from animals that died of natural causes) will only stoke demand and lead to a surge in poaching.

They point to similar surges following other one-off sales in 1999 and 2008, but some observers say these were unusual circumstan­ces (the latter sale coincided with the global recession), and that a poaching spike won’t necessaril­y follow this time around.

Zimbabwe’s Government recently concluded a conference to attempt to rally internatio­nal support for the sale of its ivory stockpile. It argues that selling some of the 136 tonnes of elephant ivory and rhino horn that it’s holding — mostly from animals that died of natural causes — could fund its conservati­on efforts.

Critics say one-off sales in 1999 and 2008 authorised by CITES, the global convention on the wildlife trade, resulted in a sharp escalation in illegal killing and poaching of elephants across Africa, and that legalizing the ivory trade could drive African elephants to extinction.

Africa is home to two species of elephants: forest elephants ( Loxodonta cyclotis) are found in the forests of Central Africa, while the larger and better-known savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) are found across Southern and East Africa, with small remnant population­s remaining in West Africa. A third elephant species, Elephas maximus, is found in Asia.

Elephants have been slaughtere­d for their tusks in huge numbers for more than a century. According to global conservati­on authority the IUCN, elephant population­s across Africa fell by around 111,000 in the decade from 2006-2016, primarily due to a wave of poaching, with elephants killed on a scale that had not been seen since the 1970s and ’80s.

Trade in elephant parts has been prohibited by CITES since 1989, but Zimbabwe, with support from Botswana, Tanzania, Namibia, and Zambia, plans to call for the lifting of the ban on trading ivory at the upcoming CITES meeting in Panama in November. The Government is making the case that selling off its ivory stockpile will generate revenue for conservati­on and community developmen­t, at a time when the national budget is constraine­d and the Covid-19 has further reduced tourism and hunting income.

“Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authority (ZimParks) requires $20 million to $25 million a year to fund its wildlife conservati­on activities,” ZimParks director Fulton Mangwanya told Mongabay on the sidelines of the conference, which took place from May 23-26 at Hwange National Park, in northweste­rn Zimbabwe.

“It costs us tens of thousands a month for storage and security of that stockpile, money that could otherwise be used for conservati­on. The Covid-19 has also negatively affected revenue which has affected management effectiven­ess. Added to that we are not on government budget.”

ZimParks’ funding currently comes exclusivel­y from photo safaris, leasing of property in protected areas, and licenses to hunt wild game — including elephants. Mangwanya said its revenue has been crippled by the global pandemic.

“We face challenges of limited staff, lack of ranger patrol equipment and supporting services. We need to purchase planes, we don’t have any at the moment. We need over 100 vehicles, every region in the country needs graders, tippers, drones for surveillan­ce,” he said.

“If we are allowed to sell our ivory stockpile, all proceeds from ivory sales will fund conservati­on in our wildlife parks and support communitie­s that live near parks and bear the brunt of conflict with the wildlife.”

Rowan Martin, a former head of wildlife and fisheries research for Zimbabwe’s national parks, told Mongabay that elephant conservati­on in Zimbabwe requires around $3,5 million per year.

“It is important to realise that the major part of this income comes from trophy hunting — about US$2,8 million. As Zimbabwe is sitting on large stocks of ivory not derived from sport hunting [about 90 metric tonnes] which they can’t sell legally, it would make a huge difference to the national income if they could sell a part of these stocks annually. Such sales could improve the livelihood­s of rural people significan­tly,” he said.

In 1999, and again in 2008, CITES authorized one-off sales of ivory from Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia. In the latter sale, Zimbabwe sold 3,755 kilograms (8,278 pounds) of raw ivory, raising more than $500 000.

Proposals from these three countries for further sales at the two last CITES conference­s failed, and the latest call has also been rejected by a bloc of 28 other African elephant range states, as well as by conservati­on organizati­ons.

Lindsey Smith, senior wildlife campaigner for the Environmen­tal Investigat­ion Agency, an NGO whose research and analysis formed part of the argument for the original CITES ban in 1989, told Mongabay in an email that any legal sales of ivory risks reigniting demand and stimulatin­g poaching.

“Coupled with the fact that elephant population­s of all three species are decreasing, and illegal killing continuing, resuming legal ivory trade will carry with it considerab­le risk that no potential monetary benefit can allay,” Smith wrote.

She acknowledg­ed that elephant population­s in Southern Africa are slowly recovering from catastroph­ic declines, as poaching in this region has waned since 2017. This has contribute­d to an increase in human-elephant conflict and related costs of managing these species, but Smith stresses that because elephants — as well as the poachers that hunt them — are a migratory species, managing their protection is necessaril­y a cross-boundary issue that requires internatio­nal collaborat­ion.

“We do agree with the views that more nuanced, sustainabl­e funding models and mechanisms for protected areas, biodiversi­ty conservati­on and community beneficiat­ion need to be developed, but do not believe that ivory trade should have a significan­t, if any role, in such schemes.”

Daniel Stiles, an independen­t illegal wildlife trade investigat­or who has consulted for the UN, the IUCN and wildlife trade monitoring NGO TRAFFIC, said poaching levels that coincided with earlier one-off sales should not be used to predict the impact of the legal trade in ivory.

“People knew there would be no more legal ivory sales after 2008. So then that sale happened and elephant poaching took off,” Stiles told Mongabay. “Rhino poaching took off at the same time as well. What caused that?”

The 2008 sale coincided with the global financial crisis and newly wealthy Chinese investors selling off property and stocks, he said. And ivory was among the new assets that they invested in instead.

“So what stimulated poaching was a combinatio­n of ivory ban and investors in China shifting from stocks to ivory. Normally when you increase supply of a product, the price drops, but it was the opposite with ivory because people were buying ivory for investment. They knew there would be no legal ivory on the market until [the next CITES meeting in] 2016, so they knew hoarding it would make them a killing — and by 2014 in China, ivory was selling at around US$3,000 a kg and that spiked poaching.”

Stiles said more rational, managed legal sales of ivory would not necessaril­y lead to a repeat of the spike in poaching a decade ago.

“You will have the legal commodity so why poach? There is always going to be illegal activity, but open trade will stop the big massive waves that are wiping out elephants,” he told Mongabay.

EIA’s Smith said her research contradict­s this view, pointing out that China’s stock market has faced repeated crashes over the past 20 years that haven’t produced matching spikes in poaching rates.

“It must also be noted that during the time of increased illegal killing, there were many legal domestic ivory markets, not just in China, which also drove demand. Illegally sourced ivory has been found previously in those legal domestic markets.

“With the closure of domestic markets, appetite for ivory has declined and we have seen a subsequent decline in the number of illegal killings of elephants, although these killings as well as the illegal trade is still ongoing.”

She said collaborat­ive dialogue among range states and other countries is the key to developing strategies to address challenges faced by Zimbabwe and its neighbors.

“We recognise that Southern African range states are facing many challenges in balancing their socio-economic developmen­t needs, the importance of protecting public safety, and their internatio­nal commitment­s to elephant conservati­on.” — Mongabay.

 ?? ?? Elephants have been slaughtere­d for their tusks in huge numbers for more than a century.
Elephants have been slaughtere­d for their tusks in huge numbers for more than a century.

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