Tag archives for CITES
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Delegates at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species 16th Conference of Parties held in Bangkok in March rejected a proposal to ban international trade in polar bears and their parts. The decision caused a stir because polar bears face a precarious future. While some non-governmental organizations were deeply disappointed by the failure to uplist polar bears from Appendix II to Appendix I, which would have banned all international trade in the species and their parts, Steven Amstrup—a renowned polar bear scientist—believes that limitations on trade don’t address the real challenge facing the iconic animals.
In the aftermath of the largest elephant poaching episode thus far in 2013, Central African governments met to coordinate and adopt an emergency plan to combat the killings. But is it too little, too late? WARNING: This post contains graphic images of slain elephants and an aborted calf.
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By Demian Chapman, Debra Abercrombie, and Carl Safina “Shark Week” came early in 2013, but it was not on TV. It occurred in early March in Bangkok, Thailand, at the world conference of the nearly 200 member nations to CITES—the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. After years of work, vigorous debate on the…
Posted by During a week when the world learned that yet again a massive slaughter of elephants has taken place, this time of 89 elephants in Chad, many of which aborted upon being shot, I am struck by this video from ABC World News, which takes us inside the Apostolic Palace that Pope Francis I now calls…
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Following news earlier this month that 100 million sharks are killed each year by fishermen—an astounding 274,000 every day—global governments agreed this week to offer the ocean predators new protection. At the annual meeting for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Bangkok this week, a coalition of global governments voted to protect five…
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Today, delegates to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Bangkok agreed to list the African manatee (Trichechus senegalensis) on Appendix I on an interim basis, boosting its protections. A final decision on the species’ status is expected by the time the conference wraps up on March 14, according to Humane Society…
Little Fellow was a good-looking young bull with splayed tusks and ear lobes that curled out. But he would not live long enough to pass his genes on to the next generation. Born in the late 1990s, Little Fellow entered a world that was pretty safe for elephants. But today, 24 years on, it certainly isn’t. The ongoing slaughter is threatening the survival of the species, as well as tourism, economies, and stability in many African countries.
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Polar bears are not souvenirs. They are an iconic, beautiful species that is rapidly disappearing. Starting this week, countries from around the world will gather at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), where protection for polar bears will be an important topic of discussion.
Sunday is opening day for the two-week-long 16th meeting, in Bangkok, Thailand, of the world’s leading body for regulating the world’s wildlife—the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES). How will the gathering decide on the issue of legalizing the sale of ivory?
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I just returned from an incredible trip scuba diving with great hammerhead sharks. This was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life. While underwater I was amazed by these awesome predators. I was able to capture a series of photos (both during day and night) of these mysterious creatures. As you look…
Battle for the Elephants (Ep. 4): Massive Ivory Stockpile
Posted by J.J. Kelley of National Geographic Television in A Voice for Elephants on February 27, 2013 “And you can smell it; it’s almost like dried blood. There is the smell of death in here. All of these are confiscated trophies.” Reports investigative journalist, Aidan Hartley. We’ve just been given exclusive access to an astonishingly vast warehouse of government owned ivory in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
For our series finale, Aidan meets with Khamis Kagasheki, minister of natural resources in Tanzania, which stores the world’s largest stockpile of elephant tusks in the world — 90 metric tons. Kagasheki agrees to allow us to take the first-ever footage of the vast warehouse that stores thousands of tusks, valued at $50 million.
Battle for the Elephants (Ep. 3): The China Ivory Market
Posted by J.J. Kelley of National Geographic Television in A Voice for Elephants on February 25, 2013 According to Bryan Christy, these two sales gave cover to ivory smugglers in China, and the underground market exploded. According to CITES, 25,000 elephants were killed in Africa last year, though other observers say it could be many more. In Tanzania alone, poachers kill 30 elephants a day. The International Fund for Animal Welfare estimates that 84 percent of the ivory sold in China is illegal.
Since the opening up of the Chinese market and the growth of its economy, ivory, once a precious material available only to the ruling elite, has become increasingly available to the growing Chinese middle class.
A luxury goods store in Beijing allowed our cameras into their showroom where Christy explains how those auctions complicate what’s for sale legally and what’s not.
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Gabon’s Minkebe National Park, once home to Africa’s largest forest elephant population, has lost 11,100 elephants to the illegal ivory trade in recent years, the Wildlife Conservation Society says. If we can find hundreds of millions of dollars to fight terrorism in Mali, we should be able to find the resources to combat this last big push by poachers, which may well be the final blow to a species that has just about gone extinct in the majority of countries where it once ranged.
Harmonizing Elephant Deaths
Posted by Joyce Poole and Petter Granli of ElephantVoices in A Voice for Elephants on February 5, 2013 
What does it actually mean to “harmonize” elephant mortality and why should we do it? The simple answer is that with many people engaged in elephant conservation in Kenya, we need to agree on the actual figures, so that we can document what is going on and react in an appropriate way. In reality the situation is a bit more complex.
Poachers are capitalizing on the disarray in the Central African Republic (CAR) and appear to be moving freely in a search of elephants. Late last year several columns of Sudanese poachers, up to 200 well-armed men, were spotted traveling across northern CAR toward Chad and Cameroon. Reports last week indicate that these poachers are moving back-and-forth between CAR and Chad.
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Oceans have been a part of my childhood exploring dreams for as long as I can remember. Truth is, the seas and its creatures that I fantasized about back then, are permanently being affected by human actions. The first time you jump in the water with a great white shark, your fears melt…
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More elephants were slaughtered for their ivory in Kenya this weekend, including 20-year-old Phylo, an elephant known to wildlife conservationists.
Stop Stimulating the Ivory Trade; Just Stop Trade
Posted by Mary Rice of the Environmental Investigation Agency in A Voice for Elephants on January 14, 2013 
Right now, the subject of ivory trading is on everyone’s lips: to trade or not to trade? There’s also a lot of talk about reducing demand by targeting consumers with awareness campaigns. But no one talks about targeting the individuals, governments, and vested interests that stimulate the trade.
Posted by Customs authorities in Hong Kong have seized over 1,000 kg of African ivory worth almost $1.5m. This concealed shipment of 779 tusks is the third largest seizure in just three months and was smuggled by sea from Kenya via Malaysia. A routine x-ray scan of a shipping container reported to contain “archaeological stones” revealed the…
Record 618 South African Rhinos Poached for Horns in 2012, so far
Posted by Leon Marshall of Environmental Journalist, News Watch South African Contributor on December 11, 2012 The number of rhinos killed for their horns in South Africa so far this year has shot up to 618. This is well past last year’s shock record of 448 and substantially more than the tally of 550 predicted at the beginning of 2012. And still there is no sign of the onslaught letting up.…
Saving Other Turtles from George’s Lonesome Fate
Posted by Wildlife Conservation Society on October 24, 2012 For turtle species numbering in the hundreds or less, we may only have a few years before we lose these marvels of evolution forever. We have the ability to make a difference, and we have the ethical responsibility to respond. We must act now to ensure that future generations have the opportunity to spot a turtle in the wild and that no species finds itself reduced by human greed or mismanagement to one last, lonesome representative.
“Blood Ivory: Ivory Worship” is generating keen interest in the Philippines. The country’s ivory trade has been the cover story of the Philippine newspapers this week and is receiving similar attention across the country, especially on the island of Cebu.
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National Geographic’s undercover investigation into how the global religious market for ivory is a driving force in the slaughter of thousands of African elephants has prompted extensive media coverage — and calls for an official inquiry — in the Philippines. Bryan Christy reported in the October 2012 issue of National Geographic that he traveled to the…
INTERPOL’s Operation Libra, the the largest coordinated operation against the illegal poaching and trade in pangolins in SE Asia, carried out coordinated investigation and enforcement actions across Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. In total, 1,220 pangolins were confiscated, including one case where Indonesian authorities discovered a shipment of 260 cartons of frozen pangolins weighing 5…
If you care about wildlife, nature, your pets, our planet, and all things good, you need to support the suspension of all trade in grey parrots from Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Thousands of these long-lived, intelligent parrots are ripped out of the wild every year, packed into cramped travel crates, fed on…
