Cash-strapped Zimbabwe pushes to be allowed to sell its ivory stockpile
Cash-strapped Zimbabwe pushes to be allowed to sell its ivory stockpile
Farayi Machamire, Mongabay
June 1, 2022
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https://news.mongabay.com/2022/06/cash-strapped-zimbabwe-pushes-to-be-allowed-to-sell-its-ivory-stockpile/
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HWANGE, ZIMBABWE: 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 metric tons 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 authorized 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 pandemic 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 pandemic 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 realize that the major part of this income comes from
trophy hunting — about $2.8 million. As Zimbabwe is sitting on large stocks
of ivory not derived from sport hunting [about 90 metric tons] 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
Intelligence 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 U.N., 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.”