‘We can’t abandon Cites’

07 Aug, 2016 - 00:08 0 Views
‘We can’t abandon Cites’

The Sunday Mail

Which one of the two is wise: to close banks and burn all the money to stop bank robberies, or use the money to enhance security against bank robbers?

A few months ago, Kenya seemed to have opted for the former when it burnt an estimated 105 tonnes of ivory. The move was meant to “devalue” ivory and deter elephant and rhino poaching.

Zimbabwe is debating how to handle its ivory stockpiles, now reaching about 96 tonnes.

The country has for the past 16 years witnessed economic challenges that have rendered wildlife conservation one of the least priorities.

Sales of the huge ivory stocks could raise several millions of dollars to boost conservation. The stumbling block is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species ban on the ivory trade. But calls for taking immediate action are growing louder.

“We agreed not to export our own rhino horns and elephant tusks,” said Gift Chimanikire, the National Assembly representative for Southerton during a sitting of the Lower House recently.

“We are very foolish, sorry to say Mr Speaker. We should withdraw from Cites and start selling our ivory.”

Similar calls have been made in various other sections as people denounce Cites as biased and restrictive.

The perception is that European countries, with the help of a few African countries, are manipulating Cites to prevent other nations from benefiting from their wildlife.

Cites has kept Zimbabwean elephants in Appendix II, which prevents trade in ivory. While protects other animals besides elephants, some people are adamant that Zimbabwe benefits little by remaining party to the convention.

After 33 years of membership, the question is what has the country gained by remaining in Cites.

Environment, Water and Climate Minister Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri says while there is need for a push to sell ivory, pulling out of Cites is not the solution.

“(Pulling out) will not help us much because unlike the Commonwealth which was not helping us in anyway, Cites benefits us in that we have hunters coming from countries outside Zimbabwe and these come in to hunt our elephants for a fee,” she told Parliament.

“Non-consumptive tourists can also suspend doing business with us because we would have pulled out of Cites. So, there are a lot of advantages than disadvantages of being a member of Cites.”

Experts say the minister is being mindful of the danger of losing tourist arrivals and revenue if Cites blacklists Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority acting director-general Mr Wilson Mutinhima backed the minister, saying pulling out of Cites over ivory alone was unsustainable as the convention also covered areas such as marketing and certification of other natural resources.

He told The Sunday Mail Extra that the country did not yet have capacity to organise recognised selling structures outside Cites.

“We are in a common market, we live in a common village where we still require to interact with everybody else,” he said.

“The markets are diverse and we still benefit by remaining in the framework of CITEs until such a time that we are able to organise ourselves and come up with a structure that can open markets.”

Mr Mutinhima said the country’s best chance to sell its ivory was to push for the deletion of regulations which prohibit international trade in ivory and do a once-off sale.

He said Government would be taking a proposal to the Conference of the Parties (COP 17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to be held in September in South Africa. He was confident the country had support of other Governments in Sadc in pushing for these changes.

“Appendix II in which our elephants are listed is what we call a qualified listing. With a qualified listing what I mean is that we cannot trade, there are restrictions to trading,” he said.

“There are regulations which we call annotations within that Appendix II which will restrict open marketing, open trade. So as we move towards COP 17 we have made an application to have these annotations deleted so that we can have a once off sale.

“And one key thing is that we have not taken a position to move away. But when we launched the Cites roadmap we had several prominent presenters and the direction they took was that Cites was not favourable to Zimbabwe, we have been restricted and our people cannot benefit from their resources.”

Zimbabwe joined Cites in 1983 at a time the elephant and rhino populations were under serious threat. The country’s elephants were then classified as an endangered species and restricted from trade. Over the years, circumstances changed and Zimbabwe’s elephant population increased significantly, resulting in ivory stores also growing.

It against this backdrop that some are now demanding that the country should pull out Cites.

Minister Muchinguri-Kashiri said: “We have noticed that we have support from other countries when we talk of trade in Cites. We have the Paris Agreement whereby other countries were saying we should benefit from our natural resources by indulging sustainable utilisation.

“Even if we are a small country, we have our benefits and we need to have confidence in what we are doing. When the time comes for us to get out of Cites, we will inform them but at the moment we are still a member of that group.”

The situation Zimbabwe finds itself in can be equated to when the country became a major diamond miner.

Calls were made to withdraw from the Kimberly Process and sell rough diamonds on the open market as the international certification scheme appeared to be under the undue influence of countries that have opposed illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe.

Instead of pulling out of the Kimberly Process, Zimbabwe embarked on an aggressive and successful international lobby to have the country’s diamonds recognised.

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