MARCHING IN SUPPORT OF IVORY TRADE BAN

Thousands of Kenyans marched in Nairobi streets on Sunday morning (May 27, 2007) to highlight their country’s proposal on elephants and rhinos to the Conference of Parties for the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to be held in the Hague, The Netherlands from June 3 to 16.

The colourful procession at the city’s Uhuru Park was flagged off by the Kenya Wildlife Service director Julius Kipng’etich.

The crowd observed a minute’s moment of silence in honour of the three Kenya Wildlife Service rangers who were shot dead by poachers last week while protecting wildlife.

Mr Kipng’etich noted that the tragic loss of three rangers was an indication of what would happen without a ban on ivory trade.

The procession marked one of the last ditch efforts by the Kenyan Government to win supporters for its proposal for a ban on ivory trade to remain in force for at least 20 years.

Kenya has a joint proposal with Mali and has won the support of 10 other African countries.

Last week, Kenya hosted 14 of them at an African Consultative Workshop in Nairobi to plan ways of lobbying other countries.

Mr Kipng’etich called on countries with demand for ivory especially Japan and China to ban its trade to save elephants.

“We control supply but the countries where demand is high should equally help us save the world’s elephants. The moment you create demand for any product, somebody has to supply it. Unfortunately, in the case of ivory, elephants in Africa have to be killed to satisfy this insatiable demand,” he said.

“Only elephants should wear ivory,” he cryptically noted.

Mr Kipng’etich added that although some southern African countries, especially Botswana with 120,000 elephants, could be suffering from their large populations, ivory trade was not the panacea.

He offered Kenya’s help in seeking other ways of managing and benefiting from such huge elephant populations without resorting to ivory trade.

“Kenya is willing to offer its elephant experts to help in managing elephant populations, including trying contraception and translocation.”

He assured Kenyans that the Kenyan delegation to CITES conference in the Hague had built a formidable and sufficient coalition supporting the proposal for a 20-year ban on trade in ivory.

“If we don’t protect our wildlife, future generations will deliver a harsh judgement on us.”

He said elephants are the flagship of Kenya’s wildlife industry and their protection directly controlled the country’s main water towers and hydro- electric power generation.

“When we protect wildlife, we protect our livelihoods and the future of the people. Our wildlife could be voiceless but it makes a huge contribution to Kenya’s Gross Domestic Product” .

Africa’s elephants have dropped from 1.3 million to 400,000. At independence, Kenya had 167,000 elephants but they plummeted to 16,000 at the height of poaching in 1989.

Although the number of elephants have since increased to 30,000, Kenya fears that the threat of insecurity is still to present for the ban on ivory trade to be lifted. Within the region, there are an estimated 2 million illegal small arms.

Mr Kipng’etich said that when the government in Somalia collapsed 17 years ago, many mistakenly thought it would just take a quick fix to get it back. “But it might take more than 30 years for Somalia to be stabilised,” he predicted.

Mr Kipng’etich added that the proposal for a 20-year moratorium was meant to give African range states time to mop up illegal arms as well as “to do the proper science of the business of wildlife conservation”.

African range states will meet on May 30 to June 1 in The Hague to seek a common position on their proposal to CITES.

ENDS