INDIA: Seashells Are A Hot Cake

Harvesting seashells for crafts and souvenirs is a large-scale industry that involves many species. These conch, triton, and helmet shells are for sale at a souvenir stand in Turks and Caicos.

In the coastal town of Kanyakumari, in southern India, mountains of newly harvested mollusk shells living animals still inside them lie drying out near a sun-drenched beach.

Next up for these seashells: a dunking for a few hours in large vats of oil and acid to clean them. Any remaining flesh or scaly growth is then scraped off each shell by hand by one of hundreds of local workers, and they’re given another soaking in oil.

After a final hand-polishing, many are shipped to artisans in nearby towns who craft jewelry and other mementos to sell to tourists. The remaining shells are destined for elsewhere in India and abroad.

For many of the species found here, this industry is illegal under Indian law.

A witness says the mass collection and processing of mollusks in Kanyakumari firsthand in 2014, it’s cruel because the shells are very much alive.

The witness who visited Kanyakumari for his thesis project, which started as an inquiry into the livelihood of shell artisans and morphed into what he calls a framework for a movement against the exploitation and mindless destruction of marine life.

The witness had expected to speak with a few artisans and learn about their craft but was flabbergasted by what he saw.

A factory worker showed him around a processing center and a massive open warehouse with high gates and security.

As soon as we opened those tall gates, I could see truckloads, heap after heap of seashells everywhere as far as the eye could see and that really put things into perspective for me, he explains. That’s when the scale of this hit me in the face.

One worker told him that his facility processes anywhere from 30 to 100 tons of shells a month, and and the witness says, several other such facilities exist in southern India.

The dozens of shell species they handle range from the spider conch, a curved shell with long protrusions resembling spider legs, to the green turban, with its swirling emerald, white, and brown vertical layers.

Both species are listed under India’s Wildlife Protection Act and therefore illegal to harvest in the country.

The shells are packaged by the kilogram and sold to craftsmen as raw material for souvenirs and other handicraft products.

The supply chain varies from town to town. For example, shells may move from a factory in Kanyakumari to an artisan’s home or shop nearby.

In the case of less touristy towns such as Rameshwaram, he says, larger processing factories send their shells to middlemen who sell them to artisans in places like Kanyakumari.

Shells from Rameshwaram are also exported overseas or to larger Indian cities such as Vizag and Mumbai.

At least 50,000 mollusk species inhabit the Earth. Whereas some shells are harvested for their meat, others—like the chambered nautilus, known for its beautiful, coiled multi-colored protective casings—are collected solely for decorative purposes.

India is by no means the only major supplier. Local news reports from GMA News Online in the Philippines describe similar processes there for harvesting, cleaning, and distributing shells. Shells are also exploited commercially in Indonesia and throughout the Caribbean, among other places.

Only a few species, notably the queen conch, which can grow to a foot in length, the chambered nautilus, the giant clam, and a few species of snails—are protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the body that regulates the global wildlife trade.

To trade these species, importers must obtain a permit from the country of origin, which is registered in an international database. In addition, CITES requires that source countries set fishing quotas to ensure that trade in these species is sustainable.

Like India, a number of other countries have implemented their own policies to protect marine mollusks.

Despite these measures, according to a 2016 study by Defenders of Wildlife, a U.S.-based nonprofit, mollusk shells are one of the most heavily confiscated wildlife products at U.S. ports of entry.

Between 2005 and 2014, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents confiscated 77 different types of wildlife products, and shells, with more than half a million seized, appeared in the top five.

Mollusk-derived shell products accounted for about 42 percent of all items. Failure to obtain an import permit—or attempting to import more items than allowed by a permit is a common reason for confiscation.

More than 90 percent of shell products seized by the Fish and Wildlife Service during that period were sourced from the wild, and nearly 99 percent were intended for commercial purposes. The Service defines the import of eight or more items to be commercial.

The queen conch—with its spiral, shiny pink and orange or cream shell that can measure up to foot long is one of the most recognizable protected mollusks.

According to a 2016 Defenders of Wildlife fact sheet, queen conches with no paperwork or improper paperwork accounted for more than 90 percent of all shells from Latin America that were confiscated by the Fish and Wildlife Service between 2005 and 2014.

Undocumented trade on such a scale, Goyenechea says, has the potential to put wild populations in jeopardy.

There’s an impact on the environment—it’s not the same to bring two shells as 1,000 shells, she says. When those myriad shells used for jewelry and decorative items like lamps and picture frames had living animals inside them in the ocean

They served a variety of ecological roles, including providing an anchorage for epiobonts like algae that provide food for marine life and for filter-feeding barnacles, which help clean the water.

The queen conch plays an important role in its ecosystem by helping cleanse the Caribbean’s waters and providing food for animals like the loggerhead sea turtle and nurse shark. Not to mention that scientists consider mollusks to be excellent indicators of overall ecosystem health.

Like any exploitation of the natural world, if you take out more from the environment than is sustainable, then that environment and the ecosystem collapse,says Neil Garrick-Maidment, executive director of The Seahorse Trust, an England-based nonprofit that has been working to bring awareness about the ill effects of the marine curio trade since 2015.

Shell fishermen in India often use a fishing technique similar to bottom trawling, which involves dragging a large net along the seafloor. When this is done, according to the Oceana, living habitat in its path is crushed, ripped up, or smothered as the seabed is turned over.

It’s unclear how widespread bottom trawling is in the global mollusk fishing industry.

The chambered nautilus, native to the South Pacific, is probably the mollusk most affected by the shell trade.

Little is known about this species, which was given CITES protection only as recently as 2017 and is especially vulnerable because unlike, say, giant clams, nautiluses can’t be bred in captivity to replenish diminishing wild populations.

According to a 2016 study by TRAFFIC and the World Wildlife Fund, global trafficking in nautiluses is still rampant. The study notes that the illegal trade has shifted from shops openly displaying them to Internet sales, which are harder to monitor and control.

The study also identifies the policing of the chambered nautilus trade in China, the Philippines, and Indonesia as a particular challenge.

CITES is only as strong as its member countries’ ability to enforce its protections says U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman Laury Parramore, adding that the Service works with foreign governments and other partners to build expertise, knowledge, and resources to properly implement CITES.

In India, the Wildlife Protection Act aims to safeguard a handful of increasingly rare mollusk species, such as the scorpion conch and the trapezium horse conch.

Enforcement is haphazard, and protected shells are sold openly on beaches to consumers and artisans, while others are exported across the globe.

Lack of information makes it harder for officials to stop the trade in even the endangered shell varieties. This is compounded by the fact that port authorities don't really understand or acknowledge this as a problem. To them it's just raw material.

Identifying mollusk species is one of the toughest challenges in policing the international trade in seashells.

During the customs process, importers often simply list their goods as shells, and the few inspectors at most ports of entry are expert enough to identify protected species.

The 2016 TRAFFIC and World Wildlife Fund study, which focused on nautilus shells, backs up this assertion. It notes that in Europe, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, shells have the same species or genus customs codes as coral and other mollusks, crustaceans, and echinoderms and that monitoring the mollusk trade in this case nautilus shells, isn’t a priority for authorities.

The absence of customs codes to track international trade, and the absence of market measures to ensure that the trade is legal mask the overall volume of harvest and trade that is occurring.

30,000 to 40,000 people in the Kanyakumari region are involved in the shell business.

Securing funding for less flashy wildlife species is very difficult. Mollusks and other marine curios like seahorses don’t have the same appeal as elephants, tigers, and pandas, as a result, it’s therefore hard to get those in power to take notice.

What’s crucially needed is to reduce demand for decorative shells and other trinkets by spreading awareness among consumers of the dangers of over exploiting mollusks.

This goes beyond just one animal or one species. It’s just about being aware of what it takes for a natural resource to be pulled out from its habitat only to end up inside a living room, especially if the exploitation is based on unchecked and unethical practices just so you can buy an object from a shop.

People who want to buy shell products ask shop owners where they came from. If an item’s origin isn’t known, she urges not buying it.

I think that one of the most important things is people don’t have information about where the product is actually coming from and how it might be harming the species and the environment.

People may mistakenly think that someone just gathered shells lying on a beach, rather than that they’d been obtained as part of an industrial-scale enterprise.

Wildlife belongs in the wild.


Tourism Observer

SPAIN: Police Raid Europe's Largest Turtle Farm In Mallorca, Shut It Down

Spanish authorities have dismantled the facility, which contained 1,100 animals and 14 of the 50 most endangered turtle species.

Spanish Civil Guard has just shut down what it calls the largest illegal turtle hatchery in Europe, on the island of Mallorca.

According to police the farm contained 1,110 turtles and tortoises. This haul included 14 of the 50 most endangered turtle species in the world, according to Europol, the European law enforcement agency.

This number is due to grow, as more than 200 of the females are gravid, or due to soon lay eggs, authorities noted.

Besides adults and hatchlings, the raid also turned up 750 eggs.

Video from Spanish authorities shows turtles housed in plastic tubs in crowded conditions on the farm, which was also populated with opaque tubs of water and barren dirt pens.

Code-named Operation Coahuila, the foundations of the investigation and subsequent raid were laid in February 2017, when police report that they discovered a shipment of illegal turtles at the Palma de Mallorca Airport in the Balearic Islands of Spain.

The turtles found in this shipment did not correspond to what was declared on the package, the police say.

Many of the turtles in the February shipment were species at high risk of extinction and protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

A long investigation ensued leading the Spanish Civil Guard eventually to the hatchery, located on the island of Mallorca.

So far, three suspects have been arrested. Two of the suspects were Germans and the third suspect is the owner of an exotic pet store in Barcelona.

Three others are also under investigation. If the detainees are unable to present documents showing their legal ownership, they will likely be charged for the crimes of smuggling of protected species.

They also face charges of money laundering.

Of the 1,100 turtles, there were 62 species recorded. The farm contained radiated tortoises (Astrochelys radiata), native to Madagascar, which are critically endangered, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

They are also listed on Appendix I of CITES.

Captive-bred radiated tortoises, and other species listed on Appendix I of CITES, are only allowed to be sold internationally for commercial purposes if the breeding facility is approved and registered with CITES.

The farm in Mallorca is not listed on the CITES registry of captive-breeding operations.

Other species seized included box turtles (Cuora sp.), considered at high risk of extinction in Southeast Asia.

There were also species endemic to Mexico, the United States and Canada, the Civil Guard noted.

Turtle and tortoises are trade for their shells, meat, and leather. They are also bred to be sold as pets.

The trade in turtles and tortoises is one of the driving factors in their demise leading them to extinction all over the world, says Max Maurer, director of membership and public outreach at Turtle Conservancy, who adds that he is not passing judgment on the suspects, who deserve the chance to make their case in court.


Tourism Observer

SOUTH AFRICA: Drugs, Rhino Horn, 51 Lion Claws And 19 Lion Teeth Impounded At OR Tambo Airport

Another person was arrested at the OR Tambo International Airport after being found in possession of drugs and a variety of other illegal items were seized.

The suspect, a 38 year old woman was being monitored after intelligence was provided that she will be arriving into the country from Sao Paulo with drugs.

On arrival from Sao Paulo, the suspect was interviewed and subsequently searched at Customs.

However, all forms of physical search had proven unsuccessful until she started to show signs of discomfort.

She was immediately taken to a local hospital and x-rayed.

The x-ray revealed foreign objects in the shape of bullets.

The “bullets”, suspected to be cocaine, were retrieved and they will be sent to our Forensic Science Laboratory for analysis.

In a separate incidents, the team intercepted a parcel at O R Tambo International Airport which was en route to Nigeria.

The parcel was physically searched by Customs and it was discovered that the it contained a rhino horn, 51 lion claws and 19 lion teeth.

The parcel was handed over to Convention on International trade in Endangered Species of wild flora and fauna (CITES) for further investigations.

The team also confiscated branded alleged counterfeit goods with an estimated street value of R 2 800 000 whilst doing gate checks.

It is alleged that a truck emanating from Swissport was inspected by SAPS and SARS.

The truck had cargo of boxes carrying Nike sneakers. The driver allegedly abandoned the truck and fled on foot.

The goods, which were falsely declared as printed matter and the truck were confiscated.

These successes are a culmination of efforts that form part of the new revised strategy that has recently been implemented at the O R Tambo International Airport under the leadership of Major General Dimakatso Ndaba which involves the South African Police Service’s Crime Intelligence, Directorate for Priority Crimes Investigation, Airports Company South Africa, O R Tambo International Airport, State Security Agency and other role players.

People may call our Crime Stop number 0860010111 with such information.

Callers may remain anonymous and all information will be treated with strictest confidence.



Tourism Observer

THAILAND: Gecko Farms Multiply As Geckos Fetch High Prices, Used In Traditional Medicines In Malaysia

While recent reports of people offering to pay Bt1 million for a gecko that was about 17.5 inches long might smack of a hoax, some Thai villagers do indeed rear and sell large lizards for their tails, which are believed to have medicinal properties to treat serious ailments.

Sunthorn Chaiwattana, an expert at the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, said the department never had a report of such a large gecko.

“The longest ones found are only 13 to 14 inches long. There might be 17 or 18inch ones but we have never seen them and there is no information in the system to support their existence,” he said, adding that the expensive price tag might also be true as it was a matter purely based on choice by both parties in the trade.

Sunthorn, however, said that while many people in the Northeast ran “gecko farms”, any exports had to be notified to the authorities due to the species’ status allowing it to be traded only if a proper permit is obtained in the originating country.

Geckos can bring in healthy profits for breeders, with demand high in China, Singapore and Malaysia.

Villagers in Ban Rai Srisuthat in Maha Sarakham’s Wapi Pathum are encouraged to rear and sell geckos for profit, while residents of Ban Nai Tan in Nakhon Phanom’s Na Wa district have carried out captive breeding of geckos for export to China and Taiwan for nearly 20 years, generating at least Bt20 million a year.

In Ban Sob Fa Moo 7 and Ban Hong Lee Moo 5 in Lampang’s Chae Hom district, geckos are reared in large cages or containers as a sideline to traditional crop farming. Fed with crickets and special food, geckos can weigh over 500 grams in four months. When grown to 1516 inches long, they are ready to be sold at Bt10,000 each.

Krabi’s Khao Phanom district resident Aree Detraksa said she bought breeding geckos from the Northeast to raise at her home eight months ago on the suggestion of her daughter who worked in Malaysia and earned about Bt5,000 to Bt10,000 a month.

Wildlife monitoring organisation TRAFFIC has urged the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to impose stricter controls on the international gecko trade.

The NGO said there was no evidence of the gecko’s efficacy as an aphrodisiac or in treating illnesses such as cancer, diabetes and HIV/Aids, and these uses could pose a danger to the species.

The latest gecko episode stemmed from Pathomporn Khunchan, a man from Songkhla’s Hat Yai district, who said a Malaysian investor was willing to pay Bt1 million to buy a live gecko in healthy condition which was more than 17.5 inches long.

He said that investors had earlier sent two representatives to inspect a gecko that a Tak supplier claimed to have.

He was about to buy air tickets from Hat Yai to Tak when the supplier refused to send a picture of the gecko and insisted on a Bt200,000 advance payment.

The representatives were unsure about the existence of the lengthy gecko, cancelled the deal and returned to Malaysia.

“The fact that the investor sent representatives to Thailand in the hope of buying the gecko showed that the deal was real. They would not waste money buying plane tickets and pay for accommodation and other expenses if they didn’t mean it,” Pathomporn said.

Meanwhile, A Bangkok taxi driver was arrested early Monday after demanding a “ransom” of B3,000 for an iPhone 6 that a passenger had left in his car.

Mongkol Srijunphan, 26, was arrested in a sting operation in the middle of Soi Thonglor 13 at 3.30am.

Police planned the arrest after the phone owner filed a complaint at Thonglor station.

The woman told police she’d forgotten the phone on the rear passenger seat after riding with a friend from the Rama III Road area to Soi Sukhumvit 31 at 1.15.

She called her phone and found it turned off, but remembered the taxi’s licence plate number.

While speaking to police, she received a phone call from the driver, who demanded Bt3,000 in exchange for the smartphone. If she didn’t pay, he threatened to sell it.

At the direction of police, the woman arranged to meet the cabbie on Soi 13 to make the exchange. He was soon arrested and charged with extortion.

CHINA; Ivory Smugglers And Traders In Trouble, China Shuts Lucrative Ivory Shops And Factories

China is closing down a third of its ivory retailers and factories on Friday before a formal ban on its ivory trade by the end of 2017.

In total, 67 carving factories and shops will be shut on Friday, with the remaining 105 to close by the end of the year, according to China's Forestry Administration.

Officials from the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species will be present to witness the shutdown.

China is the world's largest importer and user of elephant ivory tusks and the move has sparked delight among activists and conservationists.

Yet Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, has not yet followed suit despite outlining a plan last year to ban ivory trading within five years.

The price of ivory in China has dropped by almost two thirds since the country revealed plans to end the legal trade later in the year.

In early 2014, tusks cost on average £1,700 per kilogram, but by February 2017 this had dropped to less than £600.

Experts have claimed Chinese demand for tusks - at one point accounting for 70% of global demand - has driven African elephants towards extinction.

Experts estimate up to 30,000 elephants are killed by poachers each year to meet demand for ivory.

Liu Fenghai has made his fortune in the ivory trade. There was a time when he had 25 craftsmen working exclusively on elephant ivory at his factory in the northern city of Harbin.

He would buy the raw ivory and then have it turned into the pendants, paperweights and statues that once filled shelf after shelf in his shop, as well as the much larger, elaborately carved whole tusks proudly displayed on plinths of their own.

At the height of the market some of them could sell for many thousands of dollars.

Now, to the delight of conservationists everywhere, China is calling a halt to this lucrative end of a brutal and bloody trade.
But Mr Liu, as you might expect, is far from happy. "I feel sad," the 48-year-old said. "I don't feel good at all. This tradition has been carried on for thousands of years but now it will die in the hands of our generation."
"I feel like a sinner," he added. "In a few hundred years time, we will be seen as the sinners of history."

In fact, although ivory carving can indeed be traced back centuries in China, for much of that time it existed only as a niche art form and the Chinese made barely a dent in the global ivory trade.

Throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries, the mass slaughter of elephants was carried out at the hands of the European colonial powers and then later North American entrepreneurs.

Western demand for ivory ornaments, jewellery, piano keys and billiard balls helped reduce the African elephant population from more than 20 million in the year 1800 to just two million by 1960.

Then came Japan's post-war economic rise and the slaughter was propelled through the 1970s and '80s, by which time the elephant was teetering on the brink of extinction.

It was only with the international ban on the trading of elephant ivory in 1989 that the species was given a brief respite.

Once again though, it was another major shift in the global financial order that signalled further disaster - China's emergence as a major economic power.

An explosion of wealth coupled with the Communist Party's unique blend of corruption and crony capitalism made ivory the perfect repository of value, both for ostentatious displays of success and discrete gift giving.

An art form became an industry and in a few short years China began to account for up to 70% of the global demand for ivory.

Today, as a result of the surge in poaching, the elephant is once again facing complete annihilation, with estimates suggesting there are fewer than half a million left in Africa.

There may be no more wild populations within a decade.

If Mr Liu believes it is a sin to lose an ancient art, how much more of a sin to lose an ancient species in the name of the mass-produced - often machine-carved - ivory tat that makes up the bulk of the products on sale in China today?

Not a moment too soon, the Chinese government has decided which side of history it wants to be on.

This week, by the end of business hours on Friday, almost half of China's authorised, government-approved ivory factories and shops will have closed their doors for good.

A team of officials from the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) will be on hand to witness the shutdown.

The rest of China's legal trade will be gone by the end of the year - a total of 34 factories and 138 shops.

It is a deeply symbolic moment, a "game changer" according to campaigners, with one of the most high profile and vocal, the UK's Prince William, publically applauding the Chinese government's decision as "an important commitment".

No small irony, perhaps, given the role the prince's own ancestors played in promoting the trade, with more than 1,000 ivory items still held in the royal collection.

But closing China's carving workshops and retail outlets is so important, it is argued, not only for its own sake, but because this legal business acts as cover for a much bigger black market trade.

In 2008 China was allowed, under the Cites system, to buy a 62-tonne stockpile of seized African ivory.

The theory was that, with careful monitoring and a system of certificates, the stockpile would provide a controlled supply to China's factories and therefore dampen demand for illegal ivory by helping to keep prices low.

It has had the opposite effect. It appears to have in fact stimulated demand by giving consumers the green light that ivory was ok to buy. Coupled with poor enforcement, corruption and fraudulent certifications a huge amount of illegal, newly poached ivory flooded into China and on to the market, some of it under the guise of Cites authorised stock.

Demand rose further and prices, rather than going down, skyrocketed. Research suggests that the illegal stockpile of ivory in China today may stand at 1,000 tonnes or more, far in excess of that supposedly well regulated and controlled quantity purchased back in 2008.

Now, although there are undoubtedly other factors at play - not least the slowing Chinese economy and the crackdown on official graft and gift giving - the announcement of the ban on the legal trade does appear to be helping to bring the speculative frenzy to an end.

Consumers and dealers have been sent a strong signal that the game is up and prices of ivory have recently been dropping, from more than $2,000 (£1,611) per kg in 2014 to around $700 per kilo today.

Big questions remain, however. As in other markets, like the UK, the Chinese announcement appears to allow for the continued trading of antiques, which campaigners fear may act as a loophole.

Meanwhile, the government has not said what it will do with the remaining stockpile of legal ivory and how it will prevent it from leaking on to the black market.

And while the new policy may well drive the illegal trade further underground, controlling it will still depend on the resources given to law enforcement agencies.

Our own research suggests a less than wholehearted willingness to tackle wildlife crime.

For more than two decades, trade in rhino horn has been completely prohibited in China. Selling, purchasing, transporting or mailing it has been punishable by harsh sentences, including life imprisonment for the worst offenders.

And yet, via a quick search on the internet, traders can be found openly offering rhino horn for sale as whole pieces, as jewellery or for use in Chinese medicine.

The risk attached to both buying and selling appears to be small.

"Trust me, I've never had any problems before," one of the online vendors said, after sending us pictures of rhino horn bracelets.

Govt To Destroy Seized Horns, Tusks, Hides At Delhi Zoo

The Union environment ministry plans to celebrate World Wildlife Day on March 3 by destroying ill-gotten trophies of poachers including hides, scales, horns and tusks. The items will be burned in the incinerator at Delhi Zoo in the presence of environment minister of state Anil Madhav Dave.

State chief wildlife wardens have been invited by the environment ministry to contribute to the stock being burnt. Some of the confiscated items will come from the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau.

The Delhi Zoo was also the site of the last such destruction devised by the ministry. In 2014, at least four truckloads of confiscated items were destroyed and the incineration lasted for four days, according to Riyaz Khan, the curator at the Delhi Zoo. On that occasion, a stockpile worth Rs 20 lakh was destroyed.

World Wildlife Day is celebrated on March 3 to mark the signing of Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Under CITES there are bans in place on the trade of ivory and rhino horns.

Destruction by incinerator, open burning of stockpiles or crushing of tusks and horns are all done to deter poachers. Kenya burnt down the largest stock of ivory last year in April weighing about 105 tonnes.

The ministry is not revealing how much stock will be incinerated because all state governments have not responded yet.

Supporters believe incineration stifles the market for these goods by curbing supply. Shekhar Kumar Niraj, head of wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC, said that destroying the confiscated stash is important because storing it comes with risks. “There is a possibility that the ivory gets out because of the connivance of officials,” Niraj said, “the price of these goods is always rising, the stockpiled items are at risk.”

“In some of the raids conducted by the bureau the items confiscated were already marked,” Niraj said suggesting that they had been leaked back into the market.

Safeguarding confiscated goods also requires resources, both infrastructure and manpower.

Other conservationists support this move but believe more needs to be done. “The demand side is equally important, the markets have to be closed,” Varun Goswami, a conservationist at the Wildlife Conservation Society, said. Demand for these wildlife products is high in countries like China and Japan because they are believed to have medicinal value.

In December last year, the Chinese government committed to stamp out the market for poached animal parts in the country by end of 2017. It was hailed as a big step towards making the trade in these items unattractive.

However, some countries in Africa like South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe have pushed for legal sales of the stocks of confiscated items and investing some of the proceeds in conservation efforts. Goswami believes that legalising ivory sales is no way to curb poaching as it keeps demand alive.

More than 1200 animals were killed by poachers in India between 2013 and 2016, as per government data.

In 2014 items that are ostentatiously luxurious were destroyed at the Delhi Zoo incinerator. India faces a somewhat peculiar problem. Some of the items may not just be high monetary value in the black market but hold sacred value like ivory idols.

The less glamorous option of incineration may be a safe choice for the government since burning stockpiles in the open like Kenya has done might invite protests and could also aggravate Delhi’s high pollution.

Licencing Illegal Fishing To Catch Patagonian & Antarctic Toothfish

A fisheries management body has written to the Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to report that many Parties are failing to co-operate with its trade regulations and even licencing illegal fishing vessels that catch Patagonian and Antarctic Toothfish in its waters.

Illegal fishing is putting both Atlantic and Patagonian Toothfish, which are caught in deep sea areas regulated by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), at risk.

Now CCAMLR has named the 21 non-member countries that have not co-operated with use of the Commission’s catch documentation scheme and the 11 who have licenced illegal fishing vessels. All of the former and all but one of the latter are Parties to CITES.

In 2002, both toothfish species were proposed for listing under CITES but these were withdrawn when Parties instead committed to comply with CCAMLR regulations.

Almost 15 years later CCAMLR has detailed a serious lack of co-operation from a large number of CITES Parties.

“It’s an international disgrace that promises of co-operation with CCAMLR to end illegal toothfish trade made under CITES have been broken,” said Markus Burgener, Senior Programme Officer with TRAFFIC.

In 2002, TRAFFIC reported that at least half the toothfish trade was illegally caught, and while the level of illegal catch has been significantly reduced it still remains a significant threat to their conservation status.

Particularly concerning is that illegal fishers generally use deepwater bottom set gillnets, which have been banned in the CCAMLR area since 2004 because of the serious threat they pose to species particularly susceptible to over-exploitation such as sharks, skates and rays. The vast nets are often over 100 kilometres long and are set more than 1.5 km below the surface.

“A number of countries, including South Africa and its neighbours, have worked tirelessly to reduce illegal catch and trade in toothfish. Despite their positive impacts, the failure of those countries identified in the CCAMLR report is disappointing and remains a thorn in the side of legal and sustainable toothfish trade,” said Theressa Frantz, head of Environmental Programmes for WWF South Africa.

During today’s meeting, both New Zealand and the EU spoke up in favour of draft decisions urging all CITES Parties catching and trading toothfish to do so in accordance with CCAMLR provisions and to provide recommendations on how to improve their implementation of CCAMLR at the 18th Conference of the Parties.

“We are left wondering whether listing of toothfish under CITES back in 2002 might in fact have helped prompt much more effective action to stop illegal fishing, which is what prompted TRAFFIC today to call upon Parties to consider the merits of listing toothfish in CITES in the future,” said Burgener.

Toothfish are commonly sold as Chilean Sea Bass.

The non-CCAMLR countries reported to licence illegal vessels possibly engaged in the illegal catch of toothfish are Cambodia, Equatorial Guinea, Honduras, Islamic Republic of Iran, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Mauritania, Nigeria, Panama, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Togo. All except the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea are members of CITES.

The non-CCAMLR countries named for failing to participate in the CCAMLR catch and documentation scheme are: Antigua and Barbuda, Brunei Darussalam, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Jamaica, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Philippines, Singapore, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, United Arab Emirates and Viet Nam. All are members of CITES.

CCAMLR has 25 member States: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, China, European Union, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom, USA, Uruguay.

CHINA: Ivory Trade Fuelled By China

The US government on Monday last week banned trade in ivory as part of its effort to stem the killing of elephants for their tusks.

Until the US government's decision early last week, it had for the past few years restricted ivory trade in the USA as part of its contribution to the fight against killings of elephants in most African countries.

It's latest move comes at a time when Tanzania, which was one of the most hard-hit countries by poaching, is presently locked in a war against the vice.

It initially lost its war against poaching on account of numerous factors that had included, among others, abolition by the government of the retention scheme that had been introduced in the Selous Game Reserve.

For instance, in 1976, Selous had 110,000 elephants, but by 2014, the population in been decimated to 15,000!

Killing of elephants in most African countries and in the Selous in particular, has for years been fueled by growing demand for ivory products in the Far East countries.

What has exacerbated killing of elephants is the increase in demand for ivory products by the growing middle class in China, Vietnam and Thailand.

In the three countries, ivory has been transformed into an industry that is driven largely by booming middle class, in which some people covet ivory ornaments as a status symbol.

According to wildlife conservation groups, the Far East countries have encouraged the slaughter of some 30,000 African elephants a year.

And most of the slaughter took place in Selous Game Reserve.

The US government's decision to ban ivory trade in the country is however, not new.

It would, however, help in the long run to set a new, very encouraging development in the fight against poaching.

For instance, according to investigations conducted by the National Geographic Society, in 1989 the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES), banned the global ivory trade.

And when an experiment allowed Japan to buy 55 tons of ivory legally in 1999, the resulting rise in smuggling caused China to consider the Japan experiment a failure.

But just a few years later, China began lobbying to be allowed to do the same thing, namely, to buy a limited amount of ivory to sell, in a tightly controlled market, domestically.

The country lobbied hard, and in 2008, CITES granted Beijing the request. That year, China bought, legally, 73 tons of ivory from Africa and at about that time, it also built the world's largest ivory-carving factory and began opening shops to sell artifacts.

As if that was not bad enough, the Chinese government would add ivory carving to its official register of Intangible Cultural Heritage, all in an attempt to further legitimise the industry.

Later the 'National Geographic' investigators went into some of China's carving factories in 2012 and discovered, in the process, how China's actions were promoting the legal and illegal ivory trade.

Instead of keeping prices for ivory low, the China raised them, making ivory more profitable to poachers.

Meanwhile, Beijing's plan to assign legally carved ivory products photo IDs backfired,the photos are so small that an ID used to identify a legal piece of ivory could easily be attached to an illegal one to legitimise it.

The photos were so small that it was hard to tell whether the piece in the photo was the same one being sold.

In short, China's internal ivory control systems have failed, hence increasing threat to the survival of elephants in Africa and Tanzania in particular.

Going by the foregoing narrative, China now holds the key to the continued existence of elephants in Africa.

And the only way to that is for China to do exactly what the US government did early last week--ban ivory trade in China.

Of course, given the manner with which the Chinese government had allowed trade in ivory to flourish in its country, it is going to be extremely difficult to undo what it has for decades done.

But the US government had faced similar problems in the past before it finally succeeded to do what it did last week.

The US government is reported to have for years faced opposition from one of the most powerful lobbying groups in that country, the National Rifle Association.

The association is said to have actively opposed the ivory trade ban in order to protect access to ivory-handled guns.

Historic decision

But the opposition finally failed, hence the US government's historic decision early last week.

The world is now waiting with bated breath for a move by China, which has repeatedly and rightly said (through its other past actions), that it was a friend of Africa--to ban ivory trade in that country and save continent's elephants.

Illegal Pangolin Trade Threatens Rare Species

Chinese demand for the pangolin, a scale-covered anteater, is forcing the endangered animals closer to extinction, wildlife organizations announced this week.

Pangolins are disappearing in China and across their ranges in East and Southeast Asia. They have become the most frequently seized mammal in Asia's illegal wildlife trade, as smugglers sell the creatures to meet culinary and medicinal demand.

The pangolin decline comes despite national legislation that bans hunting the species throughout its Southeast Asia range. Meanwhile, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) prohibits the pangolin trade across borders.

Chris Shepherd, acting director for Southeast Asia for the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC, said the pangolin plight reflects the difficulty in enforcing the international wildlife convention.

"The ongoing massive-scale trade in these species does highlight a failure of the Convention," Shepherd said. "CITES is a very useful conservation tool, but like any tool, it is only useful when effectively used."

The pangolin or scaly ant-eater (Manis penta-dactyla dalmanni) is the most primitive of Chinese mammals, and although it is fully protected by law in the colony and island of Hong-Kong, the demand for its carcass makes more extensive protection in South China necessary (Hong Kong Naturalist, July 1937, 79). The animal itself is eaten, but a greater danger arises from the belief that the scales have medicinal value.

Fresh scales are never used, but dried scales are roasted, ashed, cooked in oil, butter, vinegar, boy’s urine, or roasted with earth or oyster-shells, to cure a variety of ills. Amongst these are excessive nervousness and hysterical crying in children, women possessed by devils and ogres, malarial fever and deafness.

So much are pangolin scales in request for these purposes that yearly the scales from some 4,000 or 5,000 individuals were imported from Java, with a value of 3,700 guilders. But recent regulations in Java, which prohibit capturing and killing of pangolins and the export of scales, will turn the attention of the Chinese medicine men more forcibly towards the native product.

Pangolin researchers gathered earlier this month in Singapore and concluded that increased demand from China has led to "great declines" in pangolin populations across Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos. Some researchers concluded that pangolins from Indonesia and Malaysia now supply the bulk of East Asian markets. The panel said traders are importing pangolins into China from as far away as Africa, where four of the eight known species of the anteater live.

Pangolins have been a staple of traditional Chinese medicine for thousands of years, but growing human populations and greater wealth across China have increased demand. Pangolin fetuses, scales, and blood are used in medicine, the meat is considered a delicacy, and stuffed pangolins are sold as souvenirs.

The decline in pangolin populations and intensified efforts to curb the illegal trade have led to rising prices for pangolin products - further enticing organized crime rings to smuggle the endangered animals. A kilogram of pangolin scales that earned only 80 yuan (US$10) in the early 1990s would now yield 1,200 yuan ($175) on the black market, according to Zhang Yue, a wildlife trade expert in China's State Forestry Administration.

An estimated 25,000-50,000 wild pangolins lived in China in 2000, according to a national survey. Populations in Guangdong and Hunan provinces have since dropped as low as 10 percent of the 2000 estimate, and populations in Hainan, Henan, and Jiangsu provinces are likely extinct, according to a study led by Li Zhang, the technical director of Conservation International's China program.

Tallies of the creatures are generally unreliable, however, due to their solitary and nocturnal habits. The International Union of Conservation of Nature acknowledges that there is "very little information available on the population status anywhere in the species' range." But the organization concurs that pangolin populations are decreasing.

"Trade surveys and interviews with hunters and traders in many parts of Southeast Asia have indicated that populations of pangolins are in serious decline and in many locations are gone altogether," Shepherd said.

According to data on wildlife seizures, at least 49,662 pangolins have been smuggled from Indonesia since 2002. In Thailand, border officials seized 7,734 pangolins between 2003 and June 2008.

The pangolin or scaly ant-eater (Manis penta-dactyla dalmanni) is the most primitive of Chinese mammals, and although it is fully protected by law in the colony and island of Hong-Kong, the demand for its carcass makes more extensive protection in South China necessary (Hong Kong Naturalist, July 1937, 79).

The animal itself is eaten, but a greater danger arises from the belief that the scales have medicinal value. Fresh scales are never used, but dried scales are roasted, ashed, cooked in oil, butter, vinegar, boy’s urine, or roasted with earth or oyster-shells, to cure a variety of ills.

Amongst these are excessive nervousness and hysterical crying in children, women possessed by devils and ogres, malarial fever and deafness. So much are pangolin scales in request for these purposes that yearly the scales from some 4,000 or 5,000 individuals were imported from Java, with a value of 3,700 guilders.

But recent regulations in Java, which prohibit capturing and killing of pangolins and the export of scales, will turn the attention of the Chinese medicine men more forcibly towards the native product.

Most governments in the pangolins' range have implemented bans on hunting or trading the animals, and violators face harsh penalties with potential imprisonment. Range countries acknowledge, however, that enforcement is generally weak due to a lack of wildlife management personnel and funding.

Shepherd said that even in countries with strict penalties, violators are rarely punished to the full extent of the law. "Penalties need to serve as a deterrent and until this happens, the trade will continue," he said.

China is a member of CITES, but the country permits some pangolin consumption to respect medicinal traditions. Pangolin scales may be used in clinical treatment and in the manufacturing of patented Chinese medicines. Both uses are permitted only in designated hospitals, not through retail sales.

To control the pangolin influx from Indonesia - where Shepherd said that middlemen regularly establish "buying stations" in villages before shipping the anteaters to China - Indonesian wildlife officials have proposed a legalized trade based on a quota system. The market would be strictly monitored and limited to a period of three to five years.

Gono Semiadi, a biologist at the Indonesia Institute for Sciences, said at a panel during the Singapore conference that a legal market would allow wildlife officials to create a rivalry between legal and illegal traders, enabling officials to better understand trade routes and trafficking data.

Given the high market value for pangolins, continued demand, and difficulty in enforcing wildlife laws in Indonesia, some conservationists are concerned that traders would illegally exceed the legal pangolin exchange quota.

"Managing a regulated trade and preventing illegal trade would prove extremely difficult, especially since the illegal trade network is so well organized," Shepherd said. "The focus should be purely on stopping the illegal trade. Allowing a regulated trade would only open a loophole for laundering of illegally sourced pangolins."

Hands Off Our Elephants

Had former President Daniel arap Moi set ivory alight on 19th July 1989, notably a whole year before a global ivory trade ban came into effect. Former President Mwai Kibaki then did the same during a ceremony in Tsavo National Park on 20th of July 2011 while current President Uhuru Kenyatta on 03rd of March last year, at which time he promised to put the country's entire ivory stock beyond economic use.

Kenya's unprecedented step sets the country apart from many other elephant range countries where the governments are still hanging on to the notion that their stocks may eventually be sold, forgetting that it was the loosening of sales regulations by CITES in the first place which saw the blood ivory trade and poaching reach industrial levels and which, in neighbouring Tanzania, wiped out tens of thousands of elephant over the last several years of the regime of former President Jakaya Kikwete.

While that administration stood by almost idle in the face of the onslaught did they lobby hard to sell ivory on the world market, a notion which after the Nairobi burn on Saturday will be put firmly to rest.

African governments will find themselves under increased scrutiny and pressure now that Kenya is putting over 105 tons of ivory beyond use, to follow suit and either burn it or crush it.

The presence of Chinese officials on Saturday will be greeted by many with incredulity, as that country is seen as the main global driver for blood ivory and most customs seizures have taken place enroute or on arrival in China. Sadly are also more than 90 percent of all arrests made by airport security in Nairobi for illegal ivory trafficking of Chinese origin, so officials present on Saturday ought to take a stark message back home to Beijing to finally ban all trade,craft and possession of ivory, to pull the rug from underneath the demand side.

While poaching in Kenya is thankfully well contained, inspite of periodic reports of dead elephant being found, mostly courtesy of a renewed effort to fight poaching since Dr. Richard Leakey was appointed to chair the organization's Board of Trustees, has poaching of elephant for ivory flared up in Southern Africa.

Uganda and Rwanda have very few reported cases of poaching though Uganda is being used by smugglers in Eastern Congo and from South Sudan to traffic blood ivory through, and the new administration of Tanzanian President John Magufuli has cracked down hard on the syndicates with of late massive fines and decades long jail terms handed down to culprits.

In South Africa though, after a relentless onslaught on the country's rhinos which saw several thousand killed over the past few years, again with the Zuma regime doing very little to stop the menace until more recently, elephant poaching is on the upswing, including Mozambique and other range countries.

Kenya has invited political leaders and global opinion leaders from high finance to the show business to drive home the message of what the country is doing, once again claiming the moral high ground in conservation and in the process of course sending out the signals that visiting Kenya for big game safaris is once again an en vogue must see destination.

Pressure after the event will be massive on CITES and ivory consumer countries like China to put a complete stop to any form of trade and include other species for good measure too, to preserve wildlife for future generations at a time when debate rages across the world over growing human - wildlife conflict, including by the way in Kenya itself.

Expect a live report from onsite on Saturday as this correspondent will cut short a visit to Seychelles to be in Nairobi for the event and share pictures and impressions from the burn site at Nairobi National Park.

LAOS: Laos Supplying Macaques to Illegal Wildlife Traders in China

Long-tailed macaques in a Lao monkey farm.

A U.N.-affiliated organization is attempting to interrupt Laos’ booming monkey business as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species recently suspended exports of long-tailed macaques from the Southeast Asian nation.

The CITES decision comes after investigations by animal welfare activists uncovered a “monkey washing” scam in which unscrupulous wildlife traders in Laos sold wild macaques to China, Vietnam and Cambodia, and dealers in those countries re-exported the primates to other nations falsely labeled as originating in those countries.

“Our investigations have raised serious concerns about the plundering of wild populations of long-tailed macaques from their native forests to feed the international research industry,” Sarah Kite, special projects director for U.K.-based Cruelty Free International, told RFA’s Lao Service.

“In particular, there is an unregulated trade and the misrepresentation of the origin of thousands of macaques exported from Laos to China and Vietnam,” she explained.

While the ethics of animal research are a hotly-debated topic, scientists say macaques are still necessary. Long-tailed macaques are often lumped together with their cousins the rhesus monkeys as both animals are used extensively in medical experiments because their physiology is close to humans.

Laos has become a major player in the monkey trade along with Cambodia and Vietnam, as laboratories seek animals for their experiments. Long-tailed macaques are especially valuable in research connected with neuroscience and human diseases.

“They are only used where no other species would suffice and have been instrumental in science as diverse as AIDS research, developing deep brain stimulation to treat Parkinson’s Disease and the testing of certain classes of drugs which can’t be tested in other species,” said said Chris McGee, a spokesman for the U.K.-based organization Understanding Animal Research.

The $15,000 monkey

Hard numbers for the monkey trade are difficult to come by, but a single macaque sells from $5,000 to $15,000. About 20,000 monkeys are imported into the U.S. each year.

While monkeys are used in research they make up a small part of the animal population scientists use in their experiments, which generally have to be approved by a committee examining whether or not the experiments are ethical, McGee explained.

“They represent just 0.1% of research animals since most lab animals are mice,” he said. “In most countries, scientists will have to pass proposed experiments through an ethics committee which balances up possible harms against the possible benefits of the experiment.”

Signed over 40 years ago, CITES regulates or bans international trade in more than 30,000 animal and plant species. While it is legal to buy and sell macaques, CITES lists the species as one that could face extinction unless trade in the animal is closely controlled.

In 2006, primate experts thought there were about 3 million long-tailed macaques in world, a decrease of about 40 percent over the past quarter century.

Got an ID for that macaque?

In Laos, the long-tailed macaque population is small, meaning Lao monkey dealers are likely getting the animals from somewhere else, according to primate researchers.

According to an investigation by the Frankfurt Zoological Society and Conservation International, it is biologically impossible for Lao animal dealers to export all the macaques they claim were bred for sale.

“These macaques cannot be supplied from Laos, as the wild populations were limited in the southern-most area in Laos, but from nearby countries, such as Thailand and Cambodia,” wrote the Frankfurt researchers.

The decision by CITES to bar exports from Laos means that organizations based in the 181 countries that are parties to the convention are barred from purchasing macaques from Laos.

While Laos macaques are banned from CITES countries, buyers may not know that they are purchasing Lao animals as macaques are exported with no identification, or identification that is easily removed.

That makes it easy for dealers in other countries to disguise their true origins. While China exports around 12,000 macaques for research, it can be difficult to tell if they actually came from self-sustaining, purpose-bred colonies.

Long-tailed macaques “at breeding facilities in Lao PDR are not given a permanent means of identification such as a tattoo or a microchip,” the Species Survival Network wrote in a document filed with CITES. “Instead, facilities use neck tags which can easily be removed or replaced.”

Cruelty Free International investigators discovered that Chinese companies like to slap a “made-in-China” label on the macaques they export.

“In other words, buyers are to be led to believe that the [macaques] originated in China, despite having originated in Laos,” the organization wrote in its investigative report.

Wildlife business booms

Macaques make up just one part of a wildlife trade that is becoming one of the world’s top illicit activities.

Illegal wildlife dealing now follows counterfeiting and the illegal trafficking in drugs, people and oil as the fifth most lucrative illicit activity in the world, according to the Washington-based research and advocacy organization Global Financial Integrity. Some estimates peg the worldwide illicit animal business at nearly $20 billion a year.

In Laos, export of the macaques has been linked to the notorious Xaysavsng Network and its head Vixay Keosavang.

The Xaysang Network is thought to be the largest known wildlife trafficking syndicate in Asia, and the U.S. is offering a $1 million reward for information that will help dismantle the network. Vixay Keosavang has denied association with the wildlife trade.

While Vixay Keosavang denies his role in the illicit wildlife trade, the Xaysavang Trading Company is definitely in the monkey business. According to Cruelty Free International, the company was holding 575 of the primates when they inspected the company’s facilities.

Xaysavang isn’t the only monkey dealer operating in Laos. The Vientiane Xinling Scientific Development Company held around 650 of the primates, while the Bin Long 2 company held 1,000 with enough space for another 4,000. Xinling is a Chinese holding company.

“In 2012 the owner of Xaysavang Trading Company told field investigators that his company was involved in an unofficial trade in [long tailed macaques] exported to Vietnam,” the Species Survival Network told CITES. “This syndicate was involved in laundering thousands of illegally-traded [long-tailed macaques] from Cambodia into Vietnam through the Lao PDR with falsified permits.”

The same is true for China, Cruelty Free International told CITES.

“Field investigators were informed by managers and owners from each of the [long tailed macaque] from Laos are misrepresented as being of Chinese origin when exported to China,” the organization told CITES. “”The Chinese companies want to put a ‘made in China’ brand on the [macaques] prior to re-exporting them to Western countries.”

Inside the monkey cage

Life for a prospective laboratory macaque can be deadly even before any experiments are performed on the animal, according to animal rights activists.

Animal dealers aren’t spending a lot of money to make the macaques life bearable. Their welfare is often ignored as the concrete pens used to house the animals had little sanitation and little was done to mimic their natural habitat, the activists say.

“At Xaysavang Trading Company, there was a simple gutter system around the cages to collect run-off feces and urine, but the trough was stagnant, being full of a mixture of feces, rotting monkey chow, and a dark liquid,” according to a Cruelty Free International report to CITES. “The farm smelled putrid and could be sensed from quite a distance away.”

Cruelty Free International investigators were particularly critical of Xaysavang, saying the some of the macaques there “appeared to be starving to death” and “some were dead in their pens.”

Laos says it follows CITES

Vongdeuan Vongiharath, director general for forest resource management in Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and the Lao CITES team member, told RFA that they inspect the monkey farms to ensure they are CITES compliant.

“After inspection, if the farm has been operated in accordance with the trade principles it will be approved, but the breeding process must be certified in the criteria of CITES,” he said.

Vongdeuan Vongiharath told RFA that the Bolikhamxay Province monkey farm where Xaysavang Trading Company has its facility is an experimental operation.

“In Bolikhamxay province the macaque farm is controlled by the provincial relevant organization,” he told RFA. “To run a Macaque farm in Laos, the operators must be officially approved, but in Bolikhamxay province the farm has been a pilot project for study and research for years. However, the farm is not allowed to breed the monkey for export because it is for study and research.”

It’s unclear what the next step is for Laos.

“In case of the macaque in Laos we must take a look at if it is likely to be endangered,” Vongdeuan Vongiharath said. “We have never received the recommendations on macaque registration for endangered species. We wait and see if the animal committee will inform us of this issue.”

UGANDA: International Treaty On Illegal Wildlife Trade

Government is seeking to domesticate an international treaty in order the tackle illegal wildlife trade currently costing the tourism sector billions in foreign exchange and reducing numbers of endangered plants and animals.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites), also known as the Washington Convention, is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals.

Mr James Rutaro, the commissioner for conservation ministry of Tourism, said at the end of a training workshop of law enforcement officers held in Entebbe recently, that due to weak laws, it has become difficult to prosecute culprits involved in illegal wildlife trade.

“Cites is the only convention that is supposed to regulate trade in wildlife specimen across the globe and there are over 172 parties that have signed this convention with the view to help cross border trade including illegal wildlife trade,” Mr Rutaro said.

Uganda appears at position 111 of parties, having acceded to CITES on July 18, 1991

Mr Rutaro added that by Uganda domesticating the treaty, it will have the advantage of working with other parties to arrest any specimen that would have left the country and enforce penalties as it is required by the Cites convention.

“It’s only when we have domesticated this convention that will have to enforce the law in the courts of Uganda short of which will be challenged that that law does not exist ,” he added.

A country incorporates a treaty by passing domestic legislation that gives effect to the treaty in the national legal system “The process of domesticating the treaty is now with Cabinet and we have already submitted a cabinet memorandum seeking approval,” Mr Rutaro said, adding that this comes as Uganda mulls amending the Tourism Act of 2008.

He said it is now Cabinet and Parliament to create the necessary legal framework, adding that wildlife remains Uganda’s tourism kingpin product.

THAILAND: Tiger Temple

Monk and tigers during walk in the quarry

Tiger Temple, or Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua Yanasampanno is a Theravada Buddhist temple in western Thailand. It was founded in 1994 as a forest temple and sanctuary for wild animals, among them several tigers, the majority of which are Indochinese tigers. The temple has long been accused by animal rights activists of mistreating the tigers for commercial gain and even trafficking some of its animals.

Tiger Temple is in the Sai Yok District of Thailand's Kanchanaburi Province, not far from the border with Burma, some 38 km (24 mi) northwest of Kanchanaburi on Hwy 323. The Tiger Temple charges an admission fee.

The temple was cleared of allegations of animal mistreatment in a 2015 investigation conducted by wildlife officials and a raid by Thai soldiers. Charges were pressed for unlicensed possession of 38 protected birds found on the temple grounds.

In 1999 the temple received its first tiger cub, one that had been found by villagers. It died soon after. Later, several tiger cubs were given to the temple. As of January 2016, the number of tigers living at the temple exceeded 150.

The original eight tigers brought to the temple were rescues, and thus far DNA data is incomplete and therefore unavailable to the public, as the pedigree of the tigers is not entirely known. However, it is presumed that they are Indochinese tigers, except Mek, a Bengal tiger. It is possible that some may be the newly discovered Malayan tigers, as well as cross breeds or hybrids.

It is claimed that the Tiger Temple's philosophy for animal conservation is flawed, and an organization called Care for the Wild International claimed that based on information collected between 2005 and 2008, the Tiger Temple is involved in clandestine exchange of tigers with the owner of a tiger farm in Laos contravening the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and national laws of Thailand and Laos. It claimed it operates as a tiger breeding facility without having a license as required under the Thai Wild Animals Reservation and Protection Act of 1992.

Tourists can take a photo with a grown tiger or a small cub

According to Edwin Wiek, founder of Wildlife Friends of Thailand, the temple's operations violate CITES, an international treaty on wildlife to which Thailand is a signatory, which bans commercial breeding of protected wild animals such as tigers. All previous attempts by authorities to remove the tigers from Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua Yanasampanno have failed, including one in May 2015. Wiek believes this is due to the influence wielded by the temple and its abbot, Phra Wisutthisarathen.

Based on the Care for the Wild International report, a coalition of 39 conservation groups, including the Humane Society International, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, World Animal Protection, and the World Wide Fund for Nature, sent a letter to the director general of National Parks of Thailand under the name "The International Tiger Coalition".

The letter urged the director general to take action against the Tiger Temple over its import and export of 12 tigers with Laos, its lack of connection with accredited conservation breeding programs, and to genetically test the tigers at the Tiger Temple to determine their pedigree and value to tiger conservation programs. It concludes that the temple does not have the facilities, the skills, the relationships with accredited zoos, or even the desire to manage its tigers in an appropriate fashion. Instead, it is motivated purely by profit.

In December 2006, ABC News spent three days at the temple and did not see any evidence of drugging or mistreating the animals. Both Thai and Western employees who were interviewed claimed that the animals were well-treated. The abbot of the monastery stated that the eventual goal was to breed tigers for release into the wild.

Monk walking tiger on a leash

In 2014, Care for the Wild International called for an end to "tiger selfies" in a global campaign coinciding with International Tiger Day. The charity's CEO, Philip Mansbridge, was quoted as saying: "I know people will immediately think we're overreacting or just out to spoil people's fun. But the reality is, one quick pic for you means a lifetime of suffering for that animal." The charity estimates that there are up to 60 incidents a year (of varying severity) of captive tigers mauling tourists or volunteers at places like Tiger Temple.

On 2 February 2015, an official investigation of the temple commenced by forest officials. After initially being sent away, they returned the following day with a warrant, policemen, and soldiers, seizing protected wild birds and impounding the tigers on the premises. The head of the Wildlife Crime Suspension office stated the park did not have the proper permits for raising the birds. The tigers were impounded pending further investigation into the tigers' documentation.

In January 2016 two reports were issued regarding the abuse and mistreatment of tigers at Tiger Temple.National Geographic alleged that the Buddhist monks there are operating a for-profit breeding, selling, and exploitation business with the enslaved tigers.

NAMIBIA: Anti-hunting Lobbyists Cost Namibia Heavily – Tourism Minister

Minister of Environment and Tourism, Pohamba Shifeta, says that anti-hunting lobbyists cost the Namibian government US$650 000 last year after pressurising the United States government on the legal auction of a black rhino hunt.

Shifeta said the hunt received negative publicity from people who did not understand the principle of conservation through sustainable utilisation.

“The permit sold for US$350 000, but could have generated more than US$1 million, which was in fact the offer on the table as confirmed by Dallas Safari Club, but which was withdrawn shortly before the auction due to pressure from anti-hunting lobbyists.

“One could therefore say that the lobby groups cost Namibia’s Rhino conservation initiative US$650 000, as the total proceeds from the auction were earmarked to go to the Namibia Game Products Trust Fund and would have been distributed among a number of rhino conservation projects,” said Shifeta at the 42nd Annual General Meeting of the Namibia Professional Hunting Association (NAPHA).

Shifeta explained that scientists from his ministry select mature, post-reproductive Black Rhino that have previously been identified as overtly aggressive and which pose a serious threat to herd growth and sustainability for the hunt.

“Such animals often charge and kill younger bulls, cows and also calves. These facts are well substantiated, and are very much at the core of our ministry’s strategic effort to reduce natural herd mortality,” said Shifeta.

Meanwhile, the hunt for the identified black rhino was delayed due to the hold-up for more than a year of the issuing of an import permit for the Black Rhino trophy because of pressure by animal rights activists on the U.S. government.

“During that period the bull, which had been scientifically select to be hunted had killed another black rhino. The non-hunters did in fact not only cost our country’s conservation efforts hundreds of thousands of US dollars, but also the life of an additional Black Rhino,” said Shifeta at the AGM, which ended at a local hotel yesterday.

Shifeta explained that Namibia is a pro-wildlife country with a progressive national constitution that has formally enshrined the sustainable utilisation of living natural resources.

“We are a hunter-friendly nation with a very proud hunting heritage, and our trophy hunting community is well respected by our government and fellow Namibians as an essential and integral part of Namibia’s wildlife conservation, tourism, agricultural and business sectors,” the minister said.

He said trophy hunting currently provides more on-the-job training and promotional opportunities, as well as pays better salaries than any other form of agricultural land employment options, and invests heavily in a variety of social upliftment and educational programmes in rural areas throughout Namibia.

Namibia is firmly established as one of Africa’s most popular hunting and tourism destinations, and all reports indicate that 2015 was again an excellent year for the local hunting and conservation community.

However, Shifeta warned that trophy hunting was currently threatened by a number of factors, exacerbated during the last five months by the unfortunate saga of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe. This anti-hunting sentiment, said Shifeta, is fuelled by rabid anti-hunter sentiments based on emotion rather than fact. These had spread like wildfire on both social media and international news.

“The hype has humanised the lion and demonised the hunters. Zimbabwe, like Namibia, has a sound wildlife management policy in place, which provides rural communities with an incentive to protect their valuable natural living resources. It is up to each and every one of us to raise our voices as enthusiastically as the anti-hunting community does, in order to promote the concept of sustainable hunting as the ultimate conservation triumph,” he said.

Namibia is recognised as a world-leader in conservation, with specific focus on rare and endangered species such as the Black Rhino. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) has granted Namibia an annual export quota of up to five hunter-taken Black Rhinos.

“Only post-reproductive males are hunted, and the revenue derived from such hunts is reinvested in Rhino management, including addressing challenges such as poaching, which is a real threat to Rhinoceros all over the world, and increasingly so in Namibia,” noted Shifeta.

ZAMBIA: ZAWA Boost Efforts To Protect The Pangolin

In the past week, Zambia Wildlife Authority (ZAWA) has rescued six pangolins through four separate operations across western Zambia. These scaly anteaters had been illegally captured from the wild by poachers and were being sold as part of the illegal wildlife trade.

GRI Wildlife Veterinary Project has assisted ZAWA in releasing four of the pangolins back into wild in Kafue National Park. Sadly two died as a result of their capture, one of which was a premature newborn whose mother gave birth due to stress.

Pangolins are often trafficked because their scales are prized in traditional Chinese medicine. In Zambia it has been reported that some cultures put a pangolin scale in their business cash box to protect their money. Other cultures believe that if the pangolin is fed special foods for a few days and then killed and opened a diamond will be found inside.

CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) has reported that these scaly anteaters are now the most hunted animal on the planet. Making matters worse, the female pangolin only gestates once per year, so opportunities for reproduction are limited.

GRI Wildlife Crime Prevention Project provides operational support to the ZAWA Intelligence and Investigations Unit involved in these anti-trafficking operations to deter and prevent the illegal wildlife trade in Zambia.

No End To Ivory Poaching In Sight

The conference of CITES, the international organisation that controls the trade in endangered species, ends in Bangkok today after almost two weeks of debate and decisions.

For four decades, this organisation has been the judge and jury for international wildlife law. There was an expectation that CITES would pass tough sentences on those complicit in the current wildlife crime crisis.

Poaching levels are rising fast; demand for ivory and rhino horn has exploded in booming Asian countries where people with new money want to show off with old symbols of wealth or buy traditional medicine.

However, the title of one press release I received today sums up a sense of disappointment, from some pressure groups, that an opportunity to halt the well-documented rise in poaching has been missed.

"CITES has no cure for elephant poaching: Compromise and rhetoric are killing world's elephants," came the press release from several wildlife campaign groups.

The groups accuse China, "the single country most responsible for the crisis due to its burgeoning ivory market", of refusing to concede that it is the main problem.

The conference has been held against the backdrop of a well-documented spike in poaching: 25,000 elephants and almost 700 rhinos were killed by poachers last year according to the World Wildlife Fund.

Some campaigners were saying this was a 'last chance' to save the elephant and rhino from unsustainable levels of destruction.

On the opening day, Prince William addressed delegates via a video statement and urged them to "make a difference" as he described poaching levels as "shocking".

The Thai PM also made a speech as the conference began, making her government's first public promise to end the ivory trade in Thailand.

Closing the domestic ivory market in Thailand would also block a loophole that allows illegal African ivory to be 'laundered' through Thailand. So hopes were high.

In the end, there has been no clear timetable for the Thai ban to come into force, and talk of sanctions against countries failing to enforce controls on ivory has come to nothing.

In Vietnam, where I saw for myself widespread abuse of laws banning the trade in rhino horn, the government has been warned it needs to clean up its act. A mere slap on the wrists, say many campaigners.

Sharks have been given extra protection. Latest figures suggest 100 million are being killed for their fins every year. Shark fin soup is an expensive luxury meal for many Chinese people and is traditionally served at weddings or business meetings to impress guests.

However, the shark protections are not a complete ban on the shark fin trade. A permit system is meant to be introduced, aimed at protecting five species, and the new rules don't come into force for 18 months.

The problem for CITES is the same facing any large international organisation. When you get lots of different countries under one roof, in this case 178, then you have conflicting cultures, needs and agendas. Compromise is inevitable.

Others will say that at least CITES exists; at least countries have a forum where they can send delegates and get together to discuss the issues and problems. Its existence and operation for 40 years is proof that action has been taken.

It will be two or three years before CITES meets again. By then it's estimated, based on current rates, that as many as 75,000 elephants and 2,100 rhinos will have been killed by poachers.

LAOS: Laos' Jungle Sin City

IT'S nine in the morning and the gaming tables are still going strong.

As croupiers take bets from the overnight die-hards, several exhausted gamblers sleep nearby, one still clutching a wad of betting slips.

Welcome to the Kings Romans, a sprawling casino complex topped by a giant golden crown that bursts into view from a sleepy river bank on the Laos' side of the Mekong River.

The Chinese-owned casino in Ton Pheung district, Bokeo, is the centrepiece of a 10,000-square metre "Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone" set up by communist-ruled Laos with investment from its giant neighbour.

The other Golden Triangle nations, Thailand and Myanmar sit just across river, an intersection that has long hosted illicit activities – from drugs and human trafficking to weapons smuggling and the sale of rare species.

The casino is an attempt by the Laos government to cash in on an activity that is banned in China yet loved by its people: gambling.

And the good times are rolling as a Chinese crackdown on gambling and other vices pushes pleasure-seekers to more permissive nations nearby.

The two-storey Kings Romans casino is dwarfed by its rivals in the regional gambling hub of Macau and even in Southeast Asian neighbours Cambodia and Vietnam.

But – open seven days a week, 24 hours a day – Kings Romans receives a steady stream of Chinese gamblers who have made their way south with pockets and briefcases filled with cash.

"Chinese players really are among the greatest gamblers in the world," a hostess responsible for welcoming customers enthused during a recent visit.

"They can stay one or two days at the same gaming table non-stop, it's incredible," she added, unwilling to give her name in a zone dominated by murky interests and where discretion is the watchword.

Slice of China

Venturing inside the SEZ feels like stepping into mainland China. The clocks are all set to Beijing time, Mandarin and other Chinese dialects are commonplace and the main currency is the yuan.

Few of the employees are Laotian. Most are Chinese or from Myanmar.

For impoverished, landlocked and isolated Laos, the zone is a much needed source of income.

Chinese money runs throughout the Laos economy. It is the nation's biggest investor with rail, roads and hydropower among China's main interests.

But observers say the inflow of cash has come at a cost – including serious environmental damage and the displacement of landless poor to make way for mega-projects.

Observers say the SEZ has now become a place to wash dirty money from China as well as local criminal networks, with fears the 99-year lease will only cement that status.

The Golden Triangle has long been known for its drug production. In previous decades it produced some of the world's most sought after heroin.

In more recent years many of the drug syndicates have switched to lab-produced crystal meth and other synthetic highs, according to a recent United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report.

"Cash-based commercial activities such as casinos, currency exchange shops or even just restaurants offer better opportunities to introduce in the legitimate economy money obtained through illegal activities," warns Giovanni Brossard, from the UNODC.

Laos has moved to crack down on money laundering, Brossard notes, with laws against the crime and by setting up a financial intelligence unit within the country's state bank.

"Yet so far no single money laundering case has made it to court," he says.

"Sauteed tiger meat"

Alongside gambling a whole host of other bacchanalian industries have sprung up to cater to punters looking to play away from prying eyes in their homelands.

Sex workers openly ply their trade on the sidewalks or at the myriad massage parlours.

"People love to come here with friends and book private rooms," explains a Chinese member of staff at a disco near the casino.

"Most are men and they bring in girls."

Conservationists say the SEZ also caters to those with illegal culinary tastes.

A recent probe by campaign group the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) found visitors could openly buy products from endangered species including tigers, leopards, elephants, rhinos and bears.

Restaurants offered sauteed tiger meat, bear paws and live pangolins on their menus.

"One business kept a live python and a bear cub in cages, both of which were available to eat on request," the NGO's investigators found.

As a signatory to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), Laos is supposedly committed to stopping illegal wildlife trafficking and clamping down on the illegal ivory trade.

But the convention is widely flouted.

Animal rights workers say both Laos and China have a responsibility to ensure the special economic zone does not become a haven for the illicit wildlife trade.

"The Chinese businesses and consumers are exploiting weak enforcement in Laos, but the Laos government can't pretend they are ignorant of what is going on," says Debbie Banks, from EIA

THAILAND: Thailand Destroys Ivory Stockpile Amid Junta Crackdown

Thailand's Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha (2nd R) looks at pieces of ivory on display during a destruction of confiscated ivory exercise at Thailand's Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation in Bangkok on August 26, 2015

Thailand destroyed more than two tonnes of ivory Wednesday—a victory for animal rights groups fighting against the trade in a country renowned for being a hub for illegal tusks.

The ceremony, in which 2,155 kilograms of raw tusks and carved trinkets were fed into an industrial rock crusher before being incinerated, was presided over by the Thai junta leader Prayu Chan-O-Cha and is the first time the kingdom has taken steps to destroy part of its stockpile.

"This is to show the Thai government's strong determination to oppose ivory trafficking and that Thailand will comply with international rules," he said during the ceremony.

Animal rights campaigners have long accused successive Thai civilian and military administrations of turning a blind eye to the lucrative trade.

They have pushed for Bangkok to destroy its stockpile to signal its determination to stamp down on the trade and avoid the risk of seized ivory finding its way back onto the black market through corrupt officials.

Trade in ivory was banned in 1989 under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). But that has not stopped criminal gangs seeking to exploit a continued demand for tusks in Asia.

Ivory and other body parts of elephants are prized for decoration, as talismans, and for use in traditional medicine across parts of Asia with Thailand a key transit point.

The country's generals, who seized power in a coup last spring, have vowed to crack down on the illegal ivory trade.

A security guard stands next to pieces of ivory on display during a destruction of confiscated ivory exercise at Thailand's Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation in Bangkok on August 26, 2015

Earlier this year, they ordered all Thais to register any ivory they owned, warning that those who failed to do so would see their items confiscated.

They have also made a series of high profile seizures including four tonnes of ivory found hidden in containers in April that originated in the Democratic Republic of Congo and was destined for Laos.

Thai police seized more than three tonnes of ivory a week later in a second haul, this time from Kenya that was again destined for Laos.

The ivory destroyed on Wednesday accounts for nearly all of Thailand's stockpile where criminal cases have been completed.

A further 540 kilograms has been donated to museums, government institution and universities to be used for educational and awareness raising purposes.