TANZANIA IN DENIAL & STILL TRYING TO SPIN ELEPHANT POACHING CRISIS

Finally admitting this week that it has presided over a catastrophic 60 per cent collapse in its elephant population due to poaching in the past five years, the Government of Tanzania is still flailing around in denial.

 

The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has been investigating ivory trafficking out of Tanzania since the current upsurge in elephant poaching began in 2006 and in November 2014 released its landmark Vanishing Point report, which revealed that Chinese-led criminal gangs are conspiring with corrupt Tanzanian officials to traffic huge amounts of ivory.

 

In an apparent bid to shirk official responsibility, the Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism, Lazaro Nyalandu, has partially blamed the 60 per cent elephant population decline on migration.

 

The reality is that since January the Government has deliberately suppressed the elephant census figures, which show a fall in numbers from 110,000 in 2009 to 43,521 last year. Despite the census being conducted between May and November 2014, the results are only now being released, on the grounds that they needed to be validated or a recount conducted.

 

Tanzania has been here before – in 2009 a similar report highlighting a serious drop in elephant numbers in the Selous was buried. The figures, to great official embarrassment, were subsequently leaked at a major international meeting.

 

Faced with such a major and ongoing crisis, the Government has defiantly moved to curb transparency on the issue when last month its Parliament passed an oppressive Statistics Bill which in effect allows it to bury any number of embarrassing realities by making it a criminal offence to publish data not endorsed by the National Bureau of Statistics. Earlier this year, the Government banned sales of The East African newspaper in Tanzania which, among other important issues, had also widely covered EIA’s Vanishing Point report.

 

In Tanzania, the reaction to Vanishing Point was led by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Bernard Membe, who told Parliament: “The EIA report has been cooked up with the aim of tainting the good reputation of our country and that of our friends, the People’s Republic of China. It is a patched up report, whose release has been timed to serve an agenda well known to us.”

 

He further insisted: “Accusations the Government of Tanzania pays no attention to illegal ivory trade, and takes no action against culprits of the crime, are baseless.” This despite the report providing clear and entirely contradictory evidence – as of October 2014, just one individual has been convicted since 2009 out of 13 cases involving 26.5 tonnes of ivory and implicating several individuals and companies. Not a single corrupt official implicated in the trade has been prosecuted.

 

Vanishing Point was widely shared with key Tanzanian Government officials and departments; to date, EIA has received no formal response.

There have been indications that the Government is belatedly stepping-up efforts to tackle poaching and ivory trafficking but its record remains tainted with suppressed information: at the Botswana Conference on Illegal Wildlife Trade in March 2015, the Government made no reference to the severe decline in elephant population, instead choosing only to highlight cherry-picked positive examples of relative stability and bemoan its need of additional funding; and as recently as April 30, 2015, Tanzania National Parks issued a press release denying a decrease in elephant population in Ruaha and claiming anti-poaching efforts have reduced poaching in the area.

 

This issue should be of serious concern for donors who are providing significant aid to Tanzania, which include efforts to combat illegal wildlife trade and strengthen Government accountability. In 2012, donors committed nearly $2.6 billion in aid for Tanzania, with the top donors being World Bank (approx $643 million), USA (approx $419 million), European Communities (approx $183 million), UK (approx $178 million) and Japan (approx $42 million).

 

EIA Elephants Campaign team leader Mary Rice said: “It’s been nearly a decade since EIA first exposed the scale of poaching and ivory trafficking in Tanzania and, despite all the warning signals and the wealth of information available to the Government, it appears that no genuine effort has been made to contain the crisis and secure the future of elephants in Tanzania.

 

“The Tanzanian Government must take responsibility for the devastation of Tanzania’s elephants from over 136,753 in 2006 to 43,521 elephants in 2014. The response of the Government needs to be drastically amplified as a priority, commensurate with the scale of the problem, and this must include transparency regarding the true scale of the problem and the arrest and prosecution of high-level ivory traffickers and the corrupt officials who enable them.”

Leaked statistics confirm scale of Tanzania’s elephant poaching crisis

In November 2014, the Environmental Investigation Agency released its report Vanishing Point, revealing how a combination of criminality and corruption in Tanzania had caused the country to lose more elephants to poaching than any other African nation.

 

Figures in the report made for sobering reading. According to the Government’s own figures, the elephant population in the Selous ecosystem had crashed from 38,975 in 2009 to just 13,084 by late 2013. The population in the Ruaha-Rungwa ecosystem declined from 31,625 to 20,090 during the same period, making it home to more elephants than any other region of Tanzania.

 

It now appears that status was short-lived. Leaked figures reveal that the Ruaha-Rungwa area population had fallen to just 8,200 elephants by late 2014 – a catastrophic decline of 60 per cent in a single year, caused by industrial-scale poaching.               

 

Yet the news that Tanzania’s elephant population has plummeted yet again is sadly predictable, as is the fact that the figures have been available for months but suppressed; despite receiving the data in January, the Government of Tanzania has failed to publish it on the grounds that it needs to validate it or conduct a recount. 

 

It appears the main justification for this is the discrepancy between the actual population figures and the number of carcasses. Burying such bad news has happened before. In 2009, when a similar report highlighted an alarming decline in elephant numbers in the Selous, the response was the same – Tanzania’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism chose to cover-up the figures which, to great embarrassment, were subsequently leaked at a major international meeting.

 

Five years on and the Government has yet again failed to acknowledge the true scale of the problem in any recent public statements, instead choosing only to highlight cherry-picked positive examples of relative stability, such as the Selous where figures have risen marginally.

 

Worryingly, such practices could soon become the norm across the country. Last month, Tanzania’s parliament passed an oppressive Statistics Bill, which in effect makes it a criminal offence to publish any data not endorsed by the National Bureau of Statistics. If signed into law by the country’s president, those falling foul of the new bill could by jailed for a minimum of one year.           

 

Whether Tanzania’s judiciary has the capacity to implement such penalties is highly unlikely. EIA’s detailed analysis of court proceedings connected to major ivory seizures linked to Tanzania since 2009 found that out of 13 cases involving 26.5 tonnes of ivory, just one person has been convicted.

 

The international donor community, rightly concerned by the shocking decline in Tanzania’s elephant population caused by rampant poaching, is lining up to fund a range of anti-poaching and elephant conservation projects in the country. In return, it should demand basic openness and transparency from the Tanzanian Government.

 

For its part, the Government should be honest about the scale of the poaching problem it faces and step up efforts to prosecute the main culprits.          

  

LAOS’ SIN CITY IS AN ILLEGAL WILDLIFE TRADE SUPERMARKET FOR VISITING CHINESE TOURISTS

LONDON: A resort complex tucked away in Laos and marketed to Chinese gamblers and tourists is a hub for trade in illegal wildlife products and parts, a new report reveals.

 

In Sin City: Illegal Wildlife Trade in Laos’ Special Economic Zone, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) documents how the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone (GT SEZ) in Bokeo Province has effectively become a lawless playground.

 

The complex comprises a casino, hotel, shops, restaurants, a shooting range and massage parlours, and visitors can openly buy endangered species products including tigers, leopards, elephants, rhinos, pangolins, helmeted hornbills, snakes and bears – smuggled in from Asia and Africa.

 

Undercover investigators from EIA and its partner Education for Nature Vietnam (ENV) documented restaurants with endangered species on their menus, from ”sauté tiger meat” and bear paws to reptiles and pangolins; one business kept a live python and a bear cub in cages, both of which were available to eat on request.

 

And the complex has ambitious plans for the manufacture of tiger bone wine. EIA/ENV found four tigers at the GT SEZ in mid-2014 but by February 2015 the number had risen to 35; a senior keeper revealed the goal is to acquire a total of 50 females for breeding to increase the population to 500 tigers within three years and to 1,000 in the long term to produce tiger bone wine for consumption at the GT SEZ and for export to China, via Yunnan.

 

The GT SEZ is run by the Chinese company Kings Romans Group, which has a 99-year lease and an 80 per cent stake in the operation. The Government of Laos has a 20 per cent stake in the GT SEZ, declaring it a duty-free area and giving it political patronage at the highest level.

 

Despite being situated in Laos, the GT SEZ functions more as an extension of China – it runs on Beijing time, signs are in Mandarin, most workers are Chinese nationals and the Chinese yuan is the main currency. Chinese nationals are permitted to visit with just an identity card rather than a passport.

 

The complex is accessed via a purpose-built 30km road from the nearest Laos town of Houaxay and China City Construction Group, a Chinese state-owned company, has been commissioned to build an international airport, a proposal which has created conflict with local farmers over land rights.

 

While Laos’ wildlife law enforcement is notoriously weak, there is not even a pretense of enforcement in the GT SEZ.

 

Debbie Banks, EIA Head of Tigers Campaign, said: “The activities within the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone constitute an intolerable disregard for international law as it concerns the illegal wildlife trade and endangered species.

 

“The Government of China urgently needs to recognise the immense damage this place does to its international reputation and to take meaningful action to rein in a Chinese company which is, in effect, running amuck with impunity in a neighbouring country with weak governance.

 

“China also needs to understand and accept that its legal domestic trade in the skins of captive-bred tigers is doing nothing but driving consumer demand – whether that demand is thriving at home or, as in the case of the GT SEZ, conveniently shunted into a neighbouring country.”

 

The report calls for the Government of Laos to immediately establish a multi-agency task force to tackle illegal wildlife trade at the GT SEZ and across the country, and to seize all illegal wildlife products at the GT SEZ.

 

It further calls on the Government of China to investigate connections between Chinese businesses and traders operating at the GT SEZ and wildlife criminals operating between Laos, Myanmar and China, and to cooperate with international counterparts to disrupt criminal networks.

 

In addition, Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) should seek CITES trade suspensions until such time as the governments of Laos and China demonstrate that adequate law enforcement, criminal justice and policy measures are being applied towards ending illegal wildlife trade associated with operations at the GT SEZ.

CHINESE CRIMINAL SYNDICATES & CORRUPTION BEHIND TANZANIA’S ELEPHANT MELTDOWN

LONDON: A new report reveals that Chinese-led criminal gangs are conspiring with corrupt Tanzanian officials to traffic huge amounts of ivory, a trade which has caused half of Tanzania’s elephants to be poached in the past five years – even diplomatic visits by high-level Chinese Government delegations have been used to smuggle ivory.

 

In the major new report Vanishing Point – Criminality, Corruption and the Devastation of Tanzania’s Elephants, released on the eve of a major regional wildlife crime summit in Tanzania, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) details how the country’s elephants are being slaughtered in vast numbers to feed a resurgent ivory trade in China.

 

In December 2013, an official visit by a Chinese naval task force to Tanzania’s capital city port of Dar es Salaam spurred a major surge in business for ivory traders, with one dealer boasting of making US$50,000 from sales to naval personnel. In addition, a Chinese national was caught trying to enter the port with 81 illegal tusks intended for two mid-ranking Chinese naval officers.

 

Earlier that year, in March, the visit of a large official delegation accompanying Chinese President Xi Jinping to Tanzania created a boom in illegal ivory sales and caused local prices to double.

 

Tanzania is the largest source of poached ivory in the world and China the largest importer of smuggled tusks. Tanzania’s world famous Selous Reserve has seen its elephant population plunge by 67 per cent in just four years, from 50,000 animals to 13,000. Based on available evidence, Tanzania has lost more elephants to poaching during this period than any other country – 10,000 in 2013 alone, equivalent to 30 a day.

 

Vanishing Point further reveals how some politicians from Tanzania’s ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party and well-connected businesspeople use their influence to protect ivory traffickers. In 2013, former Natural Resources and Tourism Minister Khamis Kagasheki named four CCM MPs as involved in elephant poaching and stated: “This business involves rich people and politicians who have formed a very sophisticated network.”

 

A year earlier, a secret list of the main culprits behind the crisis was handed to Tanzania’s President Jakaya Kikwete by intelligence sources, containing the names of prominent politicians and businesspeople regarded as untouchable due to links to the CCM; most people on the list have not been investigated further or arrested.

 

As far back as 2006, EIA investigators were told by Mwenge suppliers that some Chinese Embassy staff were major buyers of their ivory. An official of Tanzania’s wildlife department even offered to sell the investigators tusks from the Government’s ivory storeroom and to put them in touch with a dealer who could provide ivory from the Selous Reserve.

 

EIA Executive Director Mary Rice said: “This report shows clearly that without a zero tolerance approach, the future of Tanzania’s elephants and its tourism industry are extremely precarious.

 

“The ivory trade must be disrupted at all levels of criminality, the entire prosecution chain needs to be systemically restructured, corruption rooted out and all stakeholders, including communities exploited by the criminal syndicates and those on the front lines of enforcement, given unequivocal support.

 

“All trade in ivory, including all domestic sales, must be resolutely banned in China which has failed to comply with CITES ivory controls.”

SOLAR FENCING- Bhutan

Solar fencing has become effective to halt movement and destruction caused by elephants in Samrang Gewog of Bhutan. Protection of life and property has been ensured from tusker attack as they get an electric shock if trespassing.

August 23

http://www.kuenselonline.com/solar-fencing-keep-elephants-away/#.U_n0L1WSyQ8

INTERNET GIANT RAKUTEN PULLS THE PLUG ON WHALE MEAT BUT ELEPHANT IVORY SALES CONTINUE

LONDON: Internet retail giant Rakuten has announced it is terminating sales of whale products through its Japanese marketplace Rakuten Ichiba and has given merchants 30 days to remove them.

 

The move came after the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), in conjunction with Humane Society International (HSI), launched the report Blood e-Commerce on March 18 exposing Rakuten as the world’s biggest online marketplace for elephant ivory and whale meat products, and the day after UN International Court of Justice ruled against Japan’s fraudulent ‘scientific’ whaling in the Antarctic.

 

EIA Senior Campaigner Clare Perry said: “The removal of thousands of ads for whale products is a very welcome step and a clear recognition by Rakuten that selling the meat of endangered and protected whales and dolphins is seriously harmful to both its global reputation and customers’ health.”

 

But EIA President Allan Thornton added: “Japan is awash with illegal ivory trade and Rakuten's thousands of ivory ads help fuel the mass slaughter of elephants across Africa. We appeal to Rakuten to help protect elephants by immediately banning all ads for ivory products.”

 

As well as Rakuten Ichiba, the company owns Rakuten Shopping (formerly Buy.com) in the US, Play.com in the UK, PriceMinister in France, shopping sites in Germany, Austria, Brazil and other countries, Canadian e-book reader Kobu and popular chat app Viber, as well as being a major shareholder in Pinterest.

 

Rakuten’s statement, posted on its website, yesterday read: “In accordance with the March 31, 2014 ruling by the International Court of Justice, Rakuten Ichiba today asked merchants to cancel sales of whale meat products on the Rakuten Ichiba marketplace. Rakuten has also requested these merchants to remove all related items from their online shops within the next 30 days.

 

HSI Vice president Kitty Block said: “This is a good step for protecting whales and dolphins but Rakuten must take the next step and ban ivory ads to help protect Africa's elephants.”

 

RAKUTEN – THE WORLD’S BIGGEST ONLINE RETAILER OF ELEPHANT IVORY AND WHALE MEAT

LONDON: Japanese retail giant Rakuten is today exposed as the world’s biggest online marketplace for elephant ivory and whale meat products.

 

The new report “Blood e-Commerce: Rakuten’s profits from the slaughter of elephants and whales” – released by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) in conjunction with Humane Society International (HSI) – reveals that the company’s Japanese website carries more than 28,000 ads for elephant ivory products and some 1,200 whale meat products ads.

 

Internationally ambitious, the company owns Rakuten Shopping (formerly Buy.com) in the US, Play.com in the UK, PriceMinister in France, shopping sites in Germany, Austria, Brazil and other countries, Canadian e-book reader Kobu and popular chat app Viber, as well as being a major shareholder in Pinterest.

 

Up to 50,000 African elephants are poached each year in a worsening crisis to satisfy the demand for ivory from Japan and China. EIA and HSI research identified over 90 per cent of the ivory products sold on Rakuten Japan as “hanko” – name seals used to sign official documents. Large amounts of ivory hanko are known to have been produced from illegal ivory in Japan.

 

Blood e-Commerce outlines how Japan’s ivory control regulations have failed to comply with requirements of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to control raw ivory tusks and worked ivory “with demonstrably effective enforcement.”

 

Japanese hunters continue to slaughter internationally protected whale species, and the country imports the meat of endangered fin whales from Iceland. Large numbers of small whales and dolphins are hunted around the Japanese coast, which often contain high levels of toxic mercury; eight of nine products offered for sale on Rakuten were tested by an independent lab and found to contain dangerous levels of toxic mercury.

 

EIA President Allan Thornton said: “Rakuten’s ads are effectively as deadly as giving bullets to elephant poachers and harpoons to whalers. Rakuten must act immediately to ban all ads selling elephant and whale products or its global brand will be irrevocably tainted with the ongoing mass slaughter of these species.”

 

Clare Perry, head of EIA’s Cetaceans Campaign, added: “Rakuten’s claim to be committed to policies seeking to “protect the environment” can only be cynical lip-service as long as it banks the profits of products derived from threatened or endangered species.”

 

HSI Vice president Kitty Block said: “We call on Rakuten subsidiaries in the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Austria and elsewhere to urgently press Rakuten headquarters in Japan to ban all ads offering ivory and whale products.”

 

 

CONSERVATIONIST PLEAD TO SAVE WILD ELEPHANT- NEPAL

Frequent attacks on wild elephant by people as well as concerned authorities in the national parks of Nepal has compelled wildlife conservationist to plead for the safety of wild elephants. Recently 40 year old tusker died in Chitwan National park after a team of national park authorities sedated it at Amiliya village in order to put a radio collar around its neck. However 12 people lost their life due to the elephant attacks in Bara, Parsa and Rautahat central Nepal.

February 17

http://www.ekantipur.com/2014/02/17/national/end-attacks-on-elephants-plead-conservationists/385442.html

International March for Elephants

The London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) is actively supporting and participating in the International March for Elephants tomorrow (October 4, 2013), organised by The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (DSWT) through its iworry campaign.

 

Official marches will be held in London and 13 others cities around the world (click here for details); following the recent terrorist attack, the planned march in Nairobi has been replaced by a vigil.

 

EIA is proud to have played a key role in securing the 1989 international ban on ivory – a ban which did much to significantly reduce poaching and allow elephant populations to cover, but a ban drastically undermined by subsequent decisions taken by Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to allow two so-called ‘one-off’ sales of stockpiled ivory to China and Japan.

 

These sales proved to be a catastrophe for elephants, confusing consumers as to the legitimacy of ivory, stimulating new and wider demand, and providing the perfect cover behind which to launder black market poached ivory; EIA’s own field investigations in China indicate that the illegal trade is totally out of control, with up to 90 per cent of ivory available on the ‘legal’ market derived from illegal sources.

 

EIA Executive Director Mary Rice will be one of the featured speakers addressing the rally at the climax of the London march and, afterwards, will join a delegation to deliver a letter to the UK Government at 10 Downing Street which calls for stricter penalties and urgent global change.

 

“The decision to allow CITES-sanctioned ivory auctions and a limited ‘legal’ trade has been an unmitigated disaster for elephant populations,” said Rice. “All governments which supported China’s bid to become a CITES Approved Buyer must accept how misguided that decision was and introduce clear polices to firmly oppose all future proposed stockpile auctions and to bring all pressure to bear to end the ivory trade everywhere.”

SOFTBANK REFUSES TO STOP SELLING ELEPHANT, DOLPHIN & WHALE PRODUCTS ON YAHOO! JAPAN

Campaigners call on Softbank CEO to help end slaughter of elephants and whales

LONDON UK / WASHINGTON DC: Wildlife advocates expressed bitter disappointment today at the refusal of international conglomerate SoftBank Corp to ban advertisements for elephant ivory and whale & dolphin products on Yahoo! Japan, the dominant company in SoftBank’s internet division with revenues of nearly US$4 billion in 2012.

The announcement follows a letter sent in June by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Humane Society International (HSI) to SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, appealing to him to direct Yahoo! Japan to join all other Yahoo! websites worldwide in banning the sale of these products.

EIA and HSI have yet to receive a response from the Japanese telecommunications and internet corporation giant, which recently concluded a US$21.6 billion takeover of US cell phone carrier Sprint.

“SoftBank has a responsibility to millions of US Sprint customers who will be shocked to discover that SoftBank is profiting from the slaughter of elephants, whales and dolphins,” said Clare Perry, head of EIA’s Cetaceans Campaign. “SoftBank must direct Yahoo! Japan to prohibit all such ads immediately to help protect Africa’s elephants and the world’s threatened whale and dolphin populations.”

Kitty Block, Vice President of Humane Society International, added: “Tens of thousands of elephants, whales and dolphins are being killed each year to supply demand for their parts. We urge SoftBank to end their role in this cruel and unnecessary slaughter.”

Today, Yahoo! Japan lists almost 8,000 ads for elephant ivory, which have tripled in number since March after Amazon.com and Google enforced a ban and removed all ads for elephant ivory and whale products from their Japanese shopping sites.

About 80 per cent of the Yahoo! Japan ivory ads are for hanko (name seals used to sign official documents), many of which are thought to derive from illicit ivory tusks smuggled into Japan from Africa.

Yahoo! Japan also sells hundreds of whale products, including internationally protected species such as fin whales illegally killed in Iceland, minke whales killed in the Antarctic whale sanctuary as well as Bryde’s, sei and sperm whales killed in the Northwest Pacific. Other ads feature products from whales brutally killed in the town of Taiji in southern Japan, made infamous by the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove.

“We are mindful of SoftBank’s current efforts to expand its reach internationally. As you expand, however, so too does your international constituency and your need to address broader social responsibility,” stated the joint letter. “We hope that SoftBank Corp’s direct contact with Yahoo! Japan will yield positive results when all the facts concerning endangered elephants and threatened whales and dolphins are presented and considered.”