From: Nitro (Original Message) Sent: 7/29/2002 10:45 PM The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has released a new regional proposal for the CITES (Convention on International on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) convention to be held in November in Santiago, Chile.
The proposal is to allow the sale of ivory stockpiles and also increase the trade in live animals.
Botswana in particular proposes to sell 87 tons of ivory to countries which have controls in place for legitimate trade in ivory, such as Japan, and also proposes to re-locate live animals to countries meeting acceptable requirements.
My opinion is that it is a criminal waste not to utilise the ivory stocks provided that the ivory is harvested as part of responsible game management programmes. As only by giving value to wildlife to the country and the local community will true long term conservation efforts be successful. Otherwise the locals will only view the wildlife as "pests" and not "assets" adding to their lives and wealth.
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From: Nitro Sent: 7/29/2002 10:53 PM Other stockpiles proposed for sale: Botswana 20 tonnes, and an annual quota of four tonnes; Namibia - 10 tonnes and 2 tonnes annually; South Africa - 30 tonnes and two tonnes on quota per annum; Zambia - 17 tonnes; % Zimbabwe - 10 tonnes and 5 tonnes annually.
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From: Bigfive Sent: 7/30/2002 4:42 PM It is difficult to do anything controlled with these bloody bastards here in Africa.Sorry for the stong language but that's the way it is.As soon as you try to controll something they'll do all in their power to contradict it.If you say "don't shoot all the elephants" that is excactly what they're gonna do.I think it is good to utilize the stockpiles from all these southern african countries.Some of it is ivory that was gathered up 20+years.Personally I think if you overflo the ivory marked then the poaching would end or calm down at least.Why pay $250/kg of poahed,smuggled ivory if you can pay $50 for legal ivory? I'm also in big support of this proposal.Use the profits on anti-poaching units or establishing new infrastructures to help these countries to build better tourist attractions or similar things..
Bigfive
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From: hunt375 (Original Message) Sent: 7/31/2002 1:42 PM I agree Big Five flood the market with this ivory. It just might help save the elephant
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From: Bigfive Sent: 7/31/2002 4:51 PM But look on the other hand at Botswana who don't really cull elephants.They have a major problem with over populated elephants in the TULI Block.It is right in the south-eastern corner of the country.The eles are stuffing up the whole ecological system and the vegetation there because of there high numbers.The other problem is that this spesific area is totally over used by local people as cattle farming land.They are busy to create a hell of a big desert there!!!!!!
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From: Nitro Sent: 7/31/2002 8:46 PM BF, tell me, you might know. Isn't the area in the North of Botswana, South of Namibia's Caprivi strip also considerably in oversupply of elephant?
I visited Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe in 1994. The forests in the centre of the park were as if "lopped off", by a ban saw at a certain height. Not a tree was taller or undamaged. The elephants in the area breaking down both whole trees and branches (that they couldn't otherwise reach). The Eastern and Western parts of the park had stands of tall trees and lesser damage. I'm not sure how many elephants Hwnage had in excess, but at the time Zimbabwe had 80,000 elephants (hardly endangered, wouldn't you say?) but only habitat for 50,000.
Hunt375
I agree 100%. Drop a large quantity of ivory on the market, plus regular legitimate auctions from culled elephants. Decrease world prices and black market prices as well as a result.
Much better than burning a pile of stockpiled ivory in a PR and media stunt like the idiot Kenyans did a few years ago.
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From: Bigfive Sent: 8/1/2002 4:50 PM Nitro, I'm not sure of numbers but there is a lot of elephant in N-Botswana as well.The thing with this bloody non-colonialist new governments is that they never gave a sh*t about conservation.All of a sudden they over protect,if you know what i mean.They must leave the nature part to us guys who knows whats going on and rather see if they can do anything about their peoples poverty,economy or aids.Here in JHB the air is badly poluted but they worry about over-populated elephant in the Kruger Natiol Park. Sorry that I'm such a bad critic but it is really annoying to see grown men who can't use the juice in their coconuts.
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