home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
TIME: Almanac 1990
/
1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
/
time
/
103089
/
10308900.012
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1990-09-18
|
3KB
|
59 lines
ENVIRONMENT, Page 77Reprieve for the Giant of BeastsA ban on the ivory trade could help save the elephant
A decision to place yet another creature on the
endangered-species list often goes unnoticed. But last week
champagne flowed in Lausanne, Switzerland, and sighs of relief
echoed around the world. Reason: delegates to the Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) voted to place
the elephant, earth's largest land mammal, on the roll of animals
that stand worrisomely close to the brink of extinction. That
decision, supported by 76 nations and a legion of conservation and
environmental groups, triggered a worldwide ban on the ivory trade.
The hope is that it will bring an end to a decade of slaughter in
which poachers have reduced Africa's once proud herds from 1.3
million to 625,000.
The brunt of the ban will fall on the Far East. Hong Kong's
traders have a 700-ton ivory stockpile that they will be unable to
sell anywhere except within that colony. Japan, which has consumed
about 40% of all ivory in recent years, abstained from the vote at
Lausanne. Japanese officials say they intend to honor the
prohibition.
The ban will have an unwelcome impact in several southern
African nations. Their legal ivory trade has brought revenues used
for conservation efforts and improvements in local communities.
Zimbabwe, for example, carefully culls its herds without depleting
them. Ivory from this culling brings in foreign exchange to
Zimbabwe, which guards its elephants against poachers. But the
delegates in Lausanne feared that any legal trade would be used as
a cover by smugglers, as in the past. Angered by that stance,
Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique and Burundi say they may defy the
ban.
The lone concession to the southern African nations is that
they can appeal the CITES decision. If they prove that their herds
are out of danger, they could engage in tightly controlled ivory
trading. Yet if major consumer nations block imports, there will
be little market for ivory.
Enforcing the ban may not be as serious a problem as once
thought. Consumer demand for ivory is plummeting, and with it the
price of tusks. But even those who championed the ivory ban doubt
that the elephant is out of peril. Said Susan Lieberman of the U.S.
Humane Society: "This isn't the end, it's the beginning, but now
the elephant has a cease-fire." Conservationists must continue to
wage war against poachers and provide people living beside the game
reserves with reasons for regarding the elephant as something more
than a pest capable of trampling a season's crops. Kenya plans to
fence in its vast game reserves and channel more of the $320
million from tourism into local communities.
The solution is less certain in those parts of Africa racked
by starvation and civil war, where CITES decisions carry little
weight, tourist dollars are nonexistent, and the herds continue to
shrink. In Angola and Mozambique, for example, rebels use ivory to
help finance military operations. Said a spokesman for Mozambique:
"If the war stops, people can live, students can go back to school,
and yes, we can save elephants too."