Richard Leakey

I returned to Kenya last week after a short but truly memorable trip to the South Shetland Islands and the Antarctic Peninsular.  I traveled from Argentina, the port of Ushuaia, across the Drake Passage and returned by the same route after a week in the islands and the peninsular.  The sea was “bumpy” and not everyone would enjoy the crossing but the destination was quite awesome and one of the best experiences in my life.

The viewing of whales, orcas, various seals, penguins and of course the incredible ice formations was a wonderful way to spend a week.  My interest went further and I was especially interested to see what I could related to glacial retreat and the effects of climate change generally in the southern landscape, usually considered to be the coldest place on our planet.

I was shown evidence where, in the past 10 years, the glacier front had receded several hundred meters, where inlets and small bays were free of ice now during summer but which never were so before.  Records from one of the research stations on the peninsular showed an increase of the mean summer temperatures of 2.5?C.  Penguin species such as the Adelie were moving further south and warmer climate species were appearing for the first time.  There is no doubt that significant and rapid changes are taking place.

The other alarming information I obtained was that the Krill (the essential base of the food chain for the vertebrate fauna) are also being depleted.  Whilst climate change and its effect on ice flows and pack ice have a major bearing on this, there is today massive fishing for krill by Japan.  I was told that new techniques for extracting krill at a far greater tonnage were now having devastating effects on the population density.  This will have an additional impact upon the survival of other biodiversity further up the food chain.

I wonder if anyone reading this has detailed information.  Are we seeing a different but perhaps a more sinister onslaught against sea mammals and birds in the Antarctic?  If so, should the alarm not be raised?  The over use of any species can have far reaching impacts on species survival across a broad spectrum.

I am deeply concerned about the ongoing one-off ivory auction that started on 28 October in Namibia and ends on Wednesday, 6 November 2008 in South Africa.

I have spent many years looking at issues of elephant conservation and ivory trade and played a major role in successfully eliminating the massive ivory poaching that characterized what is considered the darkest period for African elephants in Kenya in the late 1980s, I believe that auctioning the ivory stockpiles would cause poaching to increase particularly in the central, eastern and western African elephant range states where poaching is not yet properly controlled.

Namibia auctioned its 9 tons of ivory on Tuesday, 28 October raising $1.2-million. Zimbabwe and Botswana have also auctioned their ivory to the exclusive Chinese and Japanese buyers making $480,000 and $1.1-million respectively. On 6 November, South Africa will auction the largest cache of ivory – 51 tons – to conclude this controversial sale. According to the Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and the parties to the auction, the funds generated from this sale will be channeled directly into conservation. I am skeptical and wonder if there is a way of knowing whether these funds will actually help conservation.

The entry of China into the legal trade is also a cause of concern for me. It is hard to believe that a country which in 2002 scored only 5.6 out of 100 points in the CITES Elephant Trade Information Systems (ETIS) ranking – which ranks countries on how effectively they tackle illegal ivory – could have scored 63 points this year. China has admitted loosing track of 120 tons of ivory from the government’s official stockpiles in the past 12 years.

Recently, Kenya saw the successful conviction of Chinese nationals accused of smuggling ivory that appears to have originated from 22 out of the 37 African elephant range states. The entry of China – the destination for most of the illegal ivory – is an ill advised move that will only serve to open up the illegal ivory markets.

Reports already indicate that poaching is increasing in most parts of Africa. The Kenya Wildlife Service – Kenya’s official wildlife authority – has reported that poaching is increasing in key elephant zones. Central and west Africa have also witnessed escalating poaching in recent times. The Democratic Republic of Congo, caught up in a complex civil strife, has become a haven for poachers.

Although CITES secretary-general Willem Wijnstekers says that southern African states have everything under control, it cannot be true for Zimbabwe. Reports by bloggers at WildlifeDirect.org and on independent media show that Zimbabwe is experiencing an unprecedented decimation of wildlife. Reports indicate that Zimbabwe may have lost up to 80% of its wildlife. There is reason to believe that a large percentage of this wildlife consists of elephants.

As the hammer falls for the last time in South Africa on Thursday, we cannot in any way say that this is a victory for conservation. It is indeed a great disservice to conservation.

I categorically denounce this auction and call on CITES to rethink how they run endangered species affairs. It should not be lost to CITES that they exist to protect the endangered species against trade malpractices, not to serve partisan interests that work against the species.