African elephants - The Good, The Bad and The Plain Stupid

The old CITES CoP chestnut - African elephants - was discussed today and, as with every CITES since CoP7, it was filled with the usual drama, controversy and hot air. However, the discussion today probably encapsulated within a one-day session all that was good, bad and, well, plain stupid, about the elephant debate in CITES over these years.

Firstly, the good. The day started out with reports from the two global monitoring systems that were established by CITES to track the illegal killing of elephants and illegal trade in ivory – MIKE and ETIS. The news was certainly not good - globally, the trend in illicit trade in elephant ivory continues to increase, largely due to poorly regulated domestic ivory markets in Africa and Asia and the increasing involvement of organized crime syndicates in the illicit trade. The countries which were identified in 2002 as being the most heavily implicated in the illicit ivory trade - the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria and Thailand - were still being identified as the major culprits today. CITES action plans to date had not changed the situation for the better.

However, what was good about this discussion was the growing recognition - and sense of alarm - that was evident from the various interventions that were made and the consensus that something urgent needed to be done. And trust me, the word 'consensus' is not one that is often seen when you're talking about elephants at CITES. Kenya highlighted the enforcement problems some range States faced and the African Elephant Action Plan which all range States had endorsed at this meeting to address these and other challenges. China pledged to not only continue its strong enforcement action at home but also reach out to its nationals travelling to those countries where its citizens had been implicated in the illicit ivory trade. Even Nigeria - which had been identified as a problem country in every single ETIS Analysis since the first assessment was conducted in 2002 - announced, for the first time, new initiatives to enhance enforcement capacity in the country.

The CITES Secretariat, which acknowledged that it had not initiated compliance measures in the past, now said that the time was fast approaching for such measures to start having teeth. Recommendations from the Secretariat to that effect were accepted by (here's that word again) consensus.

But whatever feelings there were of a shared mission among the Parties quickly evaporated the moment the two proposals from Tanzania and Zambia to downlist their elephants to Appendix II was discussed. We now come to the bad part of the day. And by 'bad' I most certainly don't mean the proponent countries. Whatever you may think of the proposals being presented by Tanzania and Zambia, their conduct throughout the debate was restrained and dignified. They made concessions - Tanzania splitting their proposal into two parts, giving Parties the option of refusing their request for a one-off sale, while Zambia withdrew the raw ivory sale component of their proposal altogether. They were not in denial - both countries admitted to the weaknesses identified in the Panel of Expert reports. They didn't rant.

Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the Parties that ostensibly represented the forces of elephant conservation. If conservationists were appalled at and disgusted by the behaviour of Libya during the Bluefin tuna debate, I wonder how they felt when their ally in the elephant debate - Mali - resorted to the same style of name-calling, insults, shouting out points-of-order and general foaming at the mouth when they attacked the Zambia proposal. Cheered on by their NGO allies, opponents of the proposal launched into emotive tirades about what a catastrophe a one-off sale of ivory would lead to - even though it was plainly clear that the one-off sale was already off the table.

As Botswana pointed out later, it was certainly ironic that the 23-nation African Elephant Coalition that was so vehemently opposed to the downlisting had between them 46,000 elephants (and decreasing fast), while the 'bad' guys in Southern Africa had over 400,000. Increasing elephant numbers evidently doesn't appear to be an indicator of successful elephant conservation.

The two proposals were, of course, defeated. And while I personally did not support Zambia's original proposal, I couldn't help feeling sorry for the way they were treated today. They’ll certainly receive more of a benefit of a doubt from me the next time round. They did not have a chance, really - the worldwide media frenzy that had been generated about them months before and the blood-soaked newspaper spreads made sure of that. You'd have thought that stomping on the Tanzania and Zambia proposals would have been victory enough. But, nooooooo! This is where we come to the 'plainly stupid' part of the day.

Now we all know the old saying 'An elephant never forgets' and the idiom of a person having a memory like an elephant. The final session of the day, unfortunately, clearly demonstrated that some of the most vocal supporters of elephant conservation most certainly don't have the memory of an elephant.

I for one remember leaving the 14th meeting of the CoP at the Hague three years ago, quite satisfied that African Elephant range states had come together to break an 18-year ivory deadlock by agreeing to a compromise presented by Chad and (ironically) Zambia. The compromise called for a 9-year official suspension of ivory trading by Botswana, South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe after their approved one- off sales took place.

At least that was how I remembered it.

Evidently, the 23 nations of the African Elephant Coalition and the NGOs cheering them on all had a quite different recollection of events three years ago. They say that the ban applied to ALL African Elephant range States - not just Botswana, South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe. So today they sought to introduce a draft Decision that attempted to 'remove the ambiguity' of the CoP 14 compromise by making the ban on elephant proposals apply to all African Elephant range States.

I thought that it was probably me who losing his wits and decided to check the relevant annotation in the Appendices. It said that "no further proposals to allow trade in elephant ivory from populations already in Appendix II shall be submitted to the Conference of the Parties for the period from CoP14 and ending nine years from the date of the single sale of ivory." Hmmm. Populations already in Appendix II, eh? Sounds pretty unambiguous to me. To add insult to injury, that particular annotation was titled "Populations of Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe (listed in Appendix II)". That looks pretty unambiguous too.

Frankly, I am still mystified why this proposal was even suggested. Was there something lost in translation in the annotation? Did some mysterious wave of collective memory loss make all those countries and NGOs simply forget what happened three years ago? And in what way did the original proposal of increasing the ban from nine years to twenty years make the situation a little less 'ambiguous'. I'm sure they weren't just trying to rat out of the deal. They probably just forgot to read their documents after CoP14.

They did later clarify that they felt the text in the annotation did not reflect the spirit of the compromise that was reached. Why they didn't say this three years ago is a mystery. And annotaton text is always debated to death for a good reason - it shouldn't just exist in the spirit world.

It was also astonishing to see that a number of countries that spoke so passionately in favour of a moratorium on elephant downlistings today were the very same countries who even more passionately demolished the Atlantic bluefin tuna moratorium proposal just the week before. Now that's ambiguous.

Anyway, the proposal from the African Elephant Coalition was, quite rightly in my humble opinion, soundly rejected. No one should be rewarded for not reading their documents after attending a meeting.

So, in summary, the whole day's debate resulted in no one winning and everyone losing. Unfortunately, among the biggest losers are the African Elephant. If we'd only spent the day on the good, without wasting all that time and energy on the bad and the plain stupid, the African Elephant would probably have ended up winners in the end.

Can CITES help conserve Saturn's aquatic species?

You might not know this, but scientists working on NASA's Cassini Equinox probe mission have detected sodium salts in ice grains of Saturn's outermost ring. NASA believes that detecting salty ice indicates that Saturn's moon Enceladus, whose jet discharges replenishes Saturn's ring with material, harbours a reservoir of liquid water - an ocean beneath its surface. And that ocean may well be home to rich marine life.

Now, you might be wondering why I am broaching a clearly astronomical subject here on what is supposedly a CITES blog. Well, there is actually a Facebook campaign now urgently calling for "an interstellar treaty ... to stop the Earth's fishing industry from treating the alien seas of Saturn with the same environmental contempt they are treating the oceans of Earth. " The 'Stop over-fishing on Saturn's moon Enceladus' campaign warns that "Saturn's xeno-fish are too rare for just another stinking bag of fish & chips" and urges human fishermen to leave Saturn alone and save its maritime species from extinction.

I don't know about inter-stellar treaties but I certainly think there is an opportunity for more Earth-bound treaties such as CITES to help here. So I wrote the following message to the leader of the campaign:

"Dear Mr Hunt,

I am a participant at the 15th Meeting of the UN Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild fauna and Flora (CITES) now taking place in Doha, Qatar. As you may have seen from a posting today on your Facebook page 'Stop over-fishing on Saturn's moon Enceladus', a vote was passed on Thursday which saw proposals by Monaco and the European Union to ban international trade in Atlantic Bluefin tuna completely destroyed by an aggressive and well-funded lobby by Japan, the Arab States, the fishing industry and other Friends of Overfishing. Atlantic bluefin tuna stocks have plummeted by 85% to feed the insatiable demand of sushi bars in Japan and the decision this week will almost certainly lead to a complete collapse of the fishery and the commercial extinction of the species."

"The fisheries lobby will no doubt seek to demolish other fisheries proposals that are going to be tabled in the meeting tomorrow, including international controls to restrict trade in Scalloped Hammerhead sharks, Porbeagles, Spiny Dogfish, Oceanic Whitetip sharks and red and pink corals."

"It's not too late - and here's where you can perhaps help. The Bluefin tuna defeat this week clearly showed our governments are either too weak or too powerless or too indifferent to the task of caring for our planet's marine resources - or are themselves complicit in emptying our seas of its rich biodiversity. They obviously can't or won't do anything to prevent the pillaging and destruction of our planet's marine resources - so they should now at least prevent the destruction of Saturn's."

"I would therefore be very grateful if your Facebook campaign and its supporters demanded that their respective governments do the following at the 15th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES this week (and it's going to get a little technical here):"

"'CITES Parties must propose and support a listing of all populations of aquatic species of fauna and flora in Saturn, and its moons, under Appendix I of CITES, thereby forbidding any international commercial trade in these species.'"

"If you can make an announcement of this call at your Facebook page and urge your members to write to their governments to either table or support this proposal, it may make a real difference and a change for the good - not just for Saturn but maybe for good old Earth as well. And looking at the strength of the opposition that conservationists face here at the CITES meeting, we need all the help we can get."

"Yours sincerely,
The Devil's Advocate"

Okay, I have to admit, there may be a few little CITES complications with regard to this proposal. For one thing, I'm not sure if any of Saturn's marine species meet the biological criteria for listing in Appendix I under the provisions of Res. Conf. 9.24 (Rev. CoP14). Primarily because I'm not even sure if there are even any marine species on Saturn - I'm working on a funding proposal for a stock assessment. And I shudder just thinking of any implications this would have in relation to the footnote with respect to application of the definition of ‘decline’ for commercially exploited aquatic species.

I'm also not sure if Saturn's marine species meet any trade criteria, since there is probably little evidence or few trade records of any inter-planetary trade with Saturn (though a few of the Doha restaurants I've been to this week served fish that looked decidedly alien).

There is also the fact that Saturn is a non-Party and may not be subject to the provisions of the Convention. I have so far been unsuccessful in contacting any of Saturn's competent authorities and scientific institutions to determine whether they currently issue any permits and certificates that are acceptable to CITES under the provisions of Res. Conf. 9.5 (Rev. CoP14).

Nevertheless, I am sure the European Union can think up of some impenetrable, maze-like 'compromise' that will no doubt overcome these complications.

Complications aside though, the message is simple: human greed and avarice is turning our seas into a vast barren ecosystem and the international community is unable to stop the maritime pillaging on Earth - so let's see if we can do better in Saturn. It's certainly worth a try but, looking at events at CoP15 this week, I probably wouldn't hold my breath for too long.

The tuna proposal becomes sushi

Yesterday, the proposal to list Atlantic bluefin tuna under Appendix I of CITES suffered a resounding rejection - not once, but twice. That Gordion knot of the so-called 'EU compromise' quickly unravelled and was rejected by 72 votes to 43, while Monaco's original proposal was even more soundly sliced to sushi by 68 to 20 - no doubt because many of the EU countries were still irretrievably caught in the Robinson Heath-like machinery of their proposal.

This was a sad result - and not just because it dooms Atlantic bluefin tuna stocks to impending collapse and commercial extinction. For one thing, it certainly quickly dispels any naive notion that CITES debate and decisions are based on the best available scientific advice and information. Everyone and his dogfish knows that it clearly meets the biological and trade criteria for listing under Appendix I of CITES - and then some. The IUCN-TRAFFIC Analyses said so. The CITES Secretariat said so. For chrissake, even the FAO Panel of Experts says so. Does all that science make even an iota of a difference? Evidently not.

But let's not even talk of scientific debate, if you were looking for any remotely intelligent debate in yesterday's tuna proceedings, you'd probably have a significantly better chance of finding an Inuit igloo in the Qatari desert. In this respect, the rather loud and lengthy intervention from the delegate of Libya probably deserves special mention. The delegate's scientific determination that the tuna was 'a smart fish' and did not want to swim to the Swedish waters of the EU proposal proponent was certainly breath-taking in its insight. He then went into this eulogy on what a great organization ICCAT is, how well-run it is, how effective it is, it is the best-of-the-best. Forget the fact that any sane person knows that among the various regional fisheries management organisations, it is probably the basket case - and when you're talking about RFMOs, that's saying a lot.

The fact that the even the usually severe interpreters could not help bursting into sniggers during his intervention probably demonstrates the hadalpelagic depths to which intelligent debate has descended to in CITES.

Of course, this all assumes that debate is even allowed to take place. Thanks to CITES' medieval procedural rules, any further debate on the tuna issue was unceremoniously cut off when the wannabe Nobel Science Prize winner from Libya called for an immediate vote on the proposal. This request was accompanied by much wailing, arm waving and beating of chests from the Arab delegations in the room, with the Committee Chairman looking on like the proverbial deer in headlights. To add insult to injury, the Friends of Over-Fishing demanded that countries resort to the cowardice of a secret ballot. CITES is based on the best available scientific advice and information? Sorry, but it's based on Who speaks the loudest. Foaming at the mouth helps too.

However, the biggest disappointment was not the stifling of debate, the paucity of rational scientific discussion, the ignorant interventions from the Friends of Over-fishing or the dull apathy and couldn't-care-less attitude of the other countries. The biggest disappointment came from the countries that the embattled Atlantic bluefin tuna depended upon the most - the countries of the European Union. I told colleagues months ago that if the EU compromise - then called the French compromise - was not killed off quickly, it would sink the proposal. It wasn't and it did.

I have to say that there were a few glimmers of hope in yesterday's proceedings. Just two years ago, I would have never imagined in my wildest dreams that Spain, Norway and the FAO would stand up in a CITES CoP and support a ban on ANY fishery, let alone a commercially significant one such as Atlantic Bluefin tuna.

And the next time a Japanese or Libyan delegate or any of the Friends of Over-Fishing takes the floor at the CoP and says that their decisions are based upon FAO advice, the world will know that it is - what's the technical fisheries term for it? - seahorseshit.