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              President Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon – fighting poaching is all about political will

Yesterday’s Illegal Wildlife Trade Meeting at St. James’ Palace was a mixture of the predictable and the hopeful. 

Both the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge made presentations, with Prince Charles stressing the need for urgency, new approaches, collaboration, much better law enforcement, demand reduction and provision of employment alternatives to poaching. He said we are involved in a race against time. Prince William stressed the need of youth to become more involved as it is their heritage that is being destroyed. Prince Charles promised a further meeting on the issue in the autumn, this one to involve Heads of State.

Their comments were a breath of fresh air in contrast to those of some other presenters, who are beginning to look like they have been at too many similar meetings and keep saying the same things. David Higgins of Interpol mentioned the need to coordinate the gathering and analysis of data on the syndicates, the need to professionalize the wildlife crime investigators and prosecutors, and the need for more cooperation and political will to combat the illegal trafficking. John Scanlon of CITES said the significant gains made by CITES over the past 40 years were under threat and that the trends were disturbing. He said when put against ruthless opponents, a commensurate response was needed. He said we know the way forward, and what is lacking right now is the will by many to take strong action. He called for better financing and rigorous efforts to identify and prosecute the kingpins as targeting the poachers themselves was not going to deliver substantive progress. He mentioned that for the first time there were people speculating on extinction to drive up the prices of animal products, and said that CITES would use it’s “teeth” – compliance measures – to ensure a lessening of the illegal trade. 

Sabri Zain of TRAFFIC and Peter Knights of WildAid both stressed the need for demand reduction but disagreed to some extent on the process. Zain mentioned that to date demand reduction has not been seen to be particularly effective as the issues involved were complex – including factors like social status, lifestyles and outward expressions of wealth to curry favours in business transactions. He felt that demand reduction would be most effective if Government-led. He also mentioned that there were good examples of demand reduction working in the past and mentioned that Japan, historically a major ivory consumer, had seen a great reduction in demand thanks to awareness campaigns and Government action. Peter Knights agreed to some extent, but mentioned that demand reduction in countries like Japan had been followed by demand increases in other consuming nations due to newly emerging rich economies. These newly affluent countries had therefore stimulated a new round of poaching to satisfy their demands. He said it was imperative to target society via celebrity campaigns and the social media, and that public outreach campaigns were not a strong point of Governments. 

I had been looking forward to hear what Thea Carroll of the Department of Environmental Affairs of South Africa was going to say. Predictably, she reported South Africa was mounting a “strong response” to rhino poaching by an integrated effort among police, the South African Defence Force, the National Prosecuting Authority and the wildlife ranger force. She said it was imperative to find long-term solutions and involve communities. The reality is that since the beginning of the year 353 rhinos have been poached in South Africa - a rate of one every ten hours heading for a predicted total of over 900 in 2013. 

Jorge Rios of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said poaching was not a conservation issue any longer but had evolved into a transnational organized crime. He said national legislations were largely incapable of dealing with wildlife crime and that current conventions on organized crime and corruption needed to be implemented. 

The presentations ended with those of Ian Craig of the Northern Rangelands Trust of Kenya and Lee White, Executive Secretary of the National Parks of Gabon. Craig urged the involvement of communities in leadership, care and commitment to wildlife through the establishment of community conservancies. White, in a quiet and carefully worded speech provided in my opinion the best presentation. He said the reason why Gabon was doing relatively well in protecting her wildlife was because there was the tremendous political will to do so. President Ali Bongo Ondimba had earlier stated “Gabon has a policy of zero tolerance for wildlife crime and we are putting in place institutions and laws to ensure this policy is enforced.” Gabon burned her ivory stockpile in June 2012 (unfortunately not an example taken up by many others) and has also mobilized their army and police forces and all government departments in a coordinated effort in what is rightly seen as a trans-border crime. Gabon is a shining example of how political will can make a decisive and meaningful difference in cutting through obstacles to achieve conservation of her wildlife heritage. 

Contrast that determination to the remarks made at the conference by Owen Paterson, the UK Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. He said the UK government was “determined” to play a part in fighting wildlife crime, that the UK was “committed” to develop the tools to do so and that failure would shame us all. Meanwhile his department has significantly cut funding to the police National Wildlife Crime Unit, only reluctantly and by public pressure agreeing to extend some financial support for one year. Paterson did announce a department “awareness raising” programme called “If They’re Gone” for just four species – elephants, rhinos, tigers and orang-utans. As mentioned by Peter Knights, public outreach is not going to be well-handled by governments – in this case by a government that has ignored that 60% of wildlife species in the UK have declined drastically in the past 50 years and that one in ten species are now in danger of extinction.

Lions received no mention at the conference, perhaps because there is still not the realization that lions are greatly affected by destructive trade. Much of this trade has the veneer of legality – trophy hunting – that has nevertheless contributed significantly to the relentless decline of the species. Also, there is as yet little realization that lions are now being targeted for their bones as a substitute for tiger bones in the traditional medicine markets. Trophy hunting provides a strange bedfellow to the poaching crisis – for example, in 2010 Cameroon exported close to 70 elephant trophies while mobilizing the army after 40 elephants were killed by poachers in March 2013. Until the realization hits that trade in species of wildlife in rapid decline – legal or illegal – must be stopped, lions will continue to draw the short straw of being ignored until it is too late.  

So, as I said, a mixed bag of messages with some high points. The Prince of Wales can do much good as he is non-political yet very influential. Together with a slowly growing number of Heads of State like Ali Bongo and Ian Khama of Botswana the African political will to conserve their national heritage is growing. Rather than moving from conference to conference where the same messages are being repeated, there needs to be a sense of building on progress. As Prince Charles said we are now in a race against time. In a following blog I will show that we have ignored all past trends since it seems that we can only respond to crises. And the crisis now is that we have no more room for error and complacency, our backs are now securely pinned against the wall. The choice is clear and unavoidable – action by deeds or extinction. 

Picture credit – James Morgan/WWF 

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