John Mbaria
29 June 2008
Nairobi — AS THE LARGEST LAND-Based animal, the elephant has the ability to excite strong emotions - emotions that now pit different African countries against each other over whether the beast has more value alive or dead.
The jumbo dispute was once again played out recently in Mombasa's Whitesands Hotel, where representatives of 19 African countries met to cement their unity and sharpen their campaign against the resumption of the ivory trade.
Meeting under the auspices of the African Elephant Coalition, the group called upon the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) not to allow China to be a partner in limited ivory trade allowed by the UN body two years ago in The Hague.
During the no-holds-barred event, Kenya, as usual, dug its heels in deep. It was obvious that the country, together with Mali, is the leader of the anti-trade pack.
Uganda was conspicuously absent and so was Tanzania. But unlike the latter, which allows sport hunting and has always voted with those calling for the resumption of the ivory trade, Uganda's voice (it emerged) has become somewhat confused.
It was revealed that officials in Uganda Wildlife Ministry advocate a resumption of the ivory trade, while the Uganda Wildlife Authority supports Kenya in calling for a total ban.
Interestingly, the group of African countries calling for a total ban also happen to be among the poorest in the world. Besides Mali, Sierra Leone, the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, there are Senegal, Southern Sudan and Ghana, countries that do not have the wherewithal to effectively conserve their wildlife. Their human populations are not in any better shape.
Meanwhile, South Africa and Botswana - who lead the pro-trade group in Africa - not only have high gross domestic products, but are able to keep their wildlife away from unlicensed killers; they are also effective in strategising during international elephant diplomatic meetings.
THIS WAS EVIDENT DURING the last Cites meeting at The Hague, when they scored yet another victory after the UN body allowed them to sell 107 tonnes of ivory to Japan.
To the countries down south, the African Elephant Coalition's argument that lifting the ban on the ivory trade would open the floodgates to illegal trade and poaching does not wash. They have constantly argued that - as effective managers of their resources - they should not be penalized for the inability of Kenya and its other anti-trade colleagues to secure their elephant herds from the poachers' guns and snares.
So, what is it that Kenya and fellow anti-ivory trade states know that informs their anti-ivory trade stance and that seems to have escaped South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe - and all the other countries outside Africa that see more value in dead elephants?
Patrick Omondi of Kenya Wildlife Service, who is considered the foremost elephant expert in Africa, presented facts and figures that even Southern African countries ought to be concerned about.
According to Omondi, the vast areas Africa has - throughout history - devoted to elephants to feed, breed and play, are largely gone.
Omondi told the gathering in Mombasa that the elephant can be found in 37 so-called range states. Their habitats there range from the vast grassland-dominated savannah (in East and Southern Africa) to such significant tropical forests as those found in the Congo Basin and parts of West Africa.
"Of the 2.6 million square kilometres now available for elephants on the continent, only 31 per cent are protected areas." He said such protected areas in Southern Africa constitute 39 per cent of the elephant range, 22 per cent in East Africa and 39 per cent in West Africa. Elephants inhabiting protected areas are relatively safer from illegal poaching.
FURTHER, IT IS APPARENT that Southern Africa has the largest amount of open land for elephant conservation and also the biggest known population of elephants on the continent.
Quoting data from the World Conservation Union (IUCN), Omondi said elephant numbers in different parts of the continent reflect the amount of land open for their conservation.
Southern Africa leads with 297,715, East Africa follows with 137,485, while Central Africa has 10,383 and West Africa has a small population of 7,487.
This means there are 472,269 elephants remaining in Africa today.
"What we are looking at here is a situation of too many elephants in some regions and too few in other regions," said Omondi.
He added that the issue is not merely about the impact that allowing international trade would have on the numbers, but also about how to manage elephants that criss-cross international boundaries - particularly when the relevant countries pursue conflicting conservation policies such as Kenya and Tanzania.
There are also other issues such as getting the world to appreciate the threat posed by human-elephant conflict in different African countries. "Surely, for a country like Senegal that has less than 10 elephants, it is important to know the story behind the low numbers," he said.
"We need an environment in which each country can be given a chance to explain the status of its elephant herds and why such a country has decided to take one or the other position on the international trade in ivory," he added.
During the Mombasa meeting, the delegates talked about systematic depletion of habitats and widespread poaching - particularly in the Central African Republic and Congo - while others talked about how elephant-human competition for available space and resources has affected numbers because, almost always, the beast ends up being the loser.
But it was Maj-Gen Alfred Akwoch, Undersecretary for the Environment and Tourism Ministry of Southern Sudan, who carried the day.
Maj-Gen Akwoch regretted that many international conferences on endangered wildlife happened before his government had signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement with Khartoum government. He said that Southern Sudan has seven ecological regions that support localised elephant populations. "Although such ecological zones do not extend to the North, ivory had always been illegally acquired from Southern Sudan. It is obvious that as we fought the war, our adversaries were busy killing elephants."
And just like humans, some of the elephants in Southern Sudan became refugees in northern Uganda, he said.
Ironically, the long-running war in Southern Sudan seems to have helped to save elephants and other wildlife from total annihilation.
For instance, a report released recently by Unep shows that the population of kob (white-eared antelopes) has been growing steadily from the last count in the 1970s and now stands at 1.2 million.
Unep noted that the same phenomenon was unobserved anywhere else in Africa. But Maj-Gen Akwoch had an explanation for it.
He says that during the war, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) issued a decree prohibiting its fighters from killing wildlife.
"One of our main interests in fighting the war was to save our resources from exploitation by the North, so we had asked everyone in SPLA to always carry a booklet that detailed a law barring them from ever killing wild animals. Indeed, when our fighters got hungry, a meeting had to be held to deliberate on what animal to kill and how," he said.
Although Southern Sudan is handicapped by lack of resources as far as managing its wildlife and other natural resources is concerned, it has now teamed up with Kenya and other states in the coalition to say "No" to the ivory trade.
The government in Juba is receiving considerable support and expertise from Kenya.
Already, it has hired Perez Olindo, a former director of the Wildlife Department in Kenya, as a consultant, and has formally asked Kenya to help in conducting a census of elephants and other wild animals.
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