WILDLIFE CRIME/TRADE/BREEDING

[Richprins]

[Lisbeth]

Dethroning the ‘Tiger King’

By Tevya Shapiro• 3 April 2020


Tiger King' (Image courtesy of Netflix)

With the world still in lockdown, our personal worlds are shrinking to the size of our screens, and the hottest show on Netflix has become a big deal. This weekend, dive into ‘Tiger King’, but don’t stop there – dive as deep as you need to understand the messages within it.

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Experts believe that in 1918, a man with the flu and a chicken with bird flu, came into contact with the same pig. The bird flu virus would have been fatal to humans but the two viruses could not infect each other’s host species. They could however, both be transmitted to pigs, and inside the infected pig, they fused to create a new virus that lead to the Spanish Flu. The pandemic killed over 50 million people.

On the 7th of February, Daily Maverick broke the story that the current Coronavirus pandemic was likely created through a similar interaction between a bat and pangolin, the most trafficked mammal on the planet. Somewhere in a wet market in Wuhan, a variety of creatures were crammed together in a confined space, some already corpses, others still breathing – kept alive for as long as possible before being consumed. It would have been under these conditions that the coronavirus cocktail could have been brewed.

Covid-19 does not care whether you are an animal trafficker or conservationist – a Coronavirus particle is roughly 14 million times smaller than a person, it has no emotions, intentions, or sense of justice.

It seems fitting that the new true crime documentary series Tiger King is now the most watched show on Netflix. The series infiltrates the insane hidden world of animal trafficking, focusing particularly on the long-running stranger-than-fiction feuds between the outlandish big players of the big-cat industry in the United States. There are roughly twice as many tigers in captivity in the US alone as there are tigers living in the wild. Wildlife trafficking concerns most governments only in as much as it can endanger people and financial prospects. The pain and existential threat which it poses to animals seems only but a peripheral concern.

In Tiger King, each of the colourful personalities we meet claims to love big cats, yet they are the very foundation of the global big-cat trafficking industry which threatens to wipe them out. They are personifications of hypocrisy who exalt these majestic beasts while sitting on their overfed bellies and feeding them milk through a baby bottle. They are superlative examples of the rejection of our own identity as fellow animals.

The centerpiece of this controversial community is the Tiger-King himself – a gun-toting, mullet-sporting, meth-smoking redneck who goes by the name of Joe Exotic. He is described in the show as “a mythical character living out in the middle of bum-fuck Oklahoma”. The self-obsession of this Napoleonesque egomaniac is part of the reason that Tiger King makes for such compelling television – someone like that, so desperate for attention, is liable to unashamedly film everything they do with the determined self assurance that the attention it brings them is admiration rather than repulsion. There is so much jaw-dropping footage on this guy that it seems to have been a struggle to cram it all into the series.

Joe Exotic is only one of the monsters in the big-cat menagerie, which includes a polygamist cult-leader, a drug lord, a strip-club owner, and a con artist. There is a historic connection between the trading of wild animals and organized crime and it’s no coincidence that big cat owners are typically flamboyant power-hungry men. They get a sick sort of high from the sense that they have subjugated a powerful creature.

In Tiger King, Carole Baskin, owner of Big Cat Rescue says, “they want to use those cats to elevate their status”. Baskin is the sworn enemy of pretty much everyone else in the industry. But the hate directed towards her is not only due to her preaching conservation, but also because of the hypocrisy of her doing so. While Baskin has devoted her life to thwarting practices like cub-petting and breeding, she herself started in those businesses; she represents an important question which Tiger King poses to its audience: if you deplore the likes of Joe Exotic, how can you approve of keeping wild animals in captivity at all? Is the difference between Joe Exotic and his arch-nemesis Carole Baskin really that big?

Apart from the very beginning and the very end, Tiger King does not feel like it’s really about tigers. Tigers are merely the currency of sin in a suspenseful crime thriller. You are drawn in by the mystique of the cats and dropped behind the curtain of misogyny and madness that shrouds their caged lives. Just as always with high rolling psychos, everything comes crashing down and it all ends in fire. This story has ignited global rage and brought big-cat conservation into the public eye, but focusing so much on the story rather than the tigers themselves feels like a missed opportunity to not only enrage people, but educate them.

Tiger King doesn’t overtly punt big-cat conservation – it gives you the numbers and tells you the story, and the facts speak for themselves. At one point in the series Tim Stark, one of the heavy weight traffickers, argues that breeding captive tigers in the United States is exactly what is needed to get tigers off the endangered list. This is not true, although the show never explains why. The tiger trafficking industry is characterized by gross levels of inbreeding; white tigers for example, suffer from an array of genetic disorders, which, if released into the wild could be the nail in the coffin of the species.

Tiger King as a series is impeccable. The content is topical and more ridiculous than your wildest dreams, the footage is excellent and the production value is top notch. As an exposé on wildlife trafficking however, there could be so much more to be said. It is a must-watch but it is also a must-understand. After being enthralled by the crass theatrics of the morally bereft psychos who trade in big cats, you owe it to the animals to clue yourself up on why zoos and sanctuaries are not as much of an ethical grey area as we sometimes like to think they are.

[Lisbeth]

THE DANGER AND CRUELTY OF WET MARKETS

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Animal Equality has launched a worldwide campaign and petition calling for the immediate closure of wet markets across the globe. Wet markets get their name in part from the blood, guts, scales and water that soak the stalls’ floors, remnants from animals brutally killed for customers who desire to eat freshly killed meat.

In exclusive footage shot by Animal Equality at wet markets in China, Vietnam and India, animals such as deer, raccoons, crocodiles, and dogs are shown living in filthy conditions, suffering from dehydration, starvation and disease.

These markets are also a threat to public health and have been the source of documented disease outbreaks in the past, including SARS. Researchers also believe COVID-19 most likely originated from a wet market in Wuhan, China, notorious for trading in wild animals.

It is because of the public health crises wet markets cause, as well as the intense suffering inflicted on farmed animals, that Animal Equality is urging the United Nations to ban all wet markets. Not only do these markets pose an immediate danger to humans, but they are also intensely cruel and abhorrently inhumane to animals.

[Lisbeth]

Chinese ban on eating wild animals likely to become law: Q&A with WCS’s Aili Kang

by Malavika Vyawahare on 9 April 2020

- Wildlife Conservation Society’s China program director, Aili Kang, spoke to Mongabay about an ongoing review of wildlife legislation in China in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, which would permanently ban the consumption of wild animals.

- The current debate in China is not about whether there should be such a ban, which could come in as soon as two months, but what shape the ban should take, according to Kang.

- Businesses that breed wild species are pushing for these species to be excluded because they are raised in captivity and can be considered livestock.

- While conservationists are calling for the permanent ban to apply to all species, the public health risk from interacting with reptile and amphibian species is lower than from birds and animals, so there is still uncertainty about whether the former would be included.

Over four months after the first cases of COVID-19 surfaced in China, the world remains in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic, with nearly 1.5 million confirmed cases and almost 89,000 deaths as of April 9. The novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is believed to have originated in bats and jumped to humans, most likely at a wet market in China’s Hubei province where wild animals were being sold. A move to amend wildlife laws to prevent future outbreaks is now gaining momentum in the country.

The Chinese ban on consumption of wild animals is likely to become permanent in the coming months, according to Aili Kang, Executive Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Asia Program. This means it would be enshrined in the country’s wildlife legislation. A decision taken by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on Feb. 24 will serve as the basis for amendments to existing wildlife laws.

Mongabay spoke to Kang about what the law could look like and its impact on the wildlife trade. In March, the WCS recommended that all commercial trade in wildlife for human consumption, especially birds and mammals, be banned globally and that markets that facilitate it be shut down. The inclusion of reptiles and amphibians is far from certain, however, because the threat of zoonotic disease outbreaks from these taxa is not as significant. Conservationists are pushing for them to be included in the hope that actions taken with public health in mind would also help curb the illegal wildlife trade.

Kang spoke about the opposition to such a move and how the ban raises questions about which species are considered “wild.” She also shed light on the gray areas that exist in enforcement. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How has the Chinese policy concerning the wildlife trade and consumption evolved since the outbreak started?

Aili Kang: February 3 was the first time that 10 ministries and the administration at the national level jointly issued a special operation and forbid any type of wildlife trade during COVID-19 outbreak. It was a reaction to the pandemic outbreak itself. It was temporary.

After that, the State Administration for Market Regulation, the Forestry and Grassland Administration of China, and other ministries all announced a series of actions, closing all the markets temporarily and checking captive-breeding farms frequently. Then, on Feb. 24 the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress issued the decision [to ban the consumption of wild animals] which a lot of media discussed.

It was not an overnight decision. Before that, President Xi Jinping published an article on Feb. 3 and pointed out that it is critical to review relevant legislation and prevent risks to public health from sources such as consuming wild animals. This already gave a signal that the national government wants to take further action. The follow-up of that is the Feb. 24 decision.

The WCS policy on this is clear: To prevent future major viral outbreaks such as the COVID-19 outbreak impacting human health, well-being, economies and security on a global scale, WCS recommends stopping all commercial trade in wildlife for human consumption, particularly of birds and mammals, and closing all such markets.

Has it triggered any discussions about legislative reform?

Definitely. On the same day the decision was announced, the members of the Standing Committee also told Xinhua News that another decision was taken to kick off the review of the Wildlife Protection Law of China, to speed up the review of the Biosecurity Law, which is a new law, and to speed up the process of the review of the Animal Epidemic Prevention Law. They also decided on a comprehensive assessment of other relevant regulations.

That process is ongoing and includes consultation activities among various stakeholders. We are providing our recommendations to the relevant government agencies. All those recommendations from different groups, from the academic side and also from the business side, are being shared.


A bucket full of eels. Image by Rhett A. Butler

Are there groups that are opposed to making this decision to prohibit the consumption of wild animals permanent?

There are no groups opposed to a permanent ban, but there is pushback from the legal farming business side about what exactly the ban should be. There is farming of bamboo rats, which is one of the species that is discussed in the context of COVID-19. There is also a discussion about a small group of turtle species or reptile species, such as salamanders. Because there are captive-breeding farms, they wonder if those species should be included in the ban or not. Most of the debate focuses on certain species, including sika deer farming. Some people are suggesting that the government reconsider whether this animal should be considered a wild animal or captive one.

Most people agree that wild animals should not continue to be consumed, but the question is whether captive-bred wild animals can be considered wild or livestock. There is a lot of debate about some frog species. For birds, there is not a lot of debate.

The government is collecting information to see if they can find a balance. But the decision and various articles published by national government officials have made it clear that as long as it is in the list of nationally protected wild animals or nationally protected species with beneficial, economic or scientific research value, no matter if it is a mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian and aquatic species, all those are forbidden, so all terrestrial wild animals must be excluded from these lists.


An Asian black bear in a hammock at Tam Dao sanctuary in Vietnam, run by Animals Asia. Bear bile is used as in traditional Chinese medicine. Image by Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals.

What about the pet trade and the use of wild animal products in traditional medicine?

There are a lot of researchers in China who are suggesting that the government develop higher standards to assess zoonotic disease risks, improve detection and quarantine and control procedures for wild animals among different types of trade. In China, traders or practitioners need to get permission from various government agencies according to the features of the trade. Many groups suggest that the government should have a more transparent and traceable permission system to look into what animal is being traded and check if it is from legal captive breeding. Also, those animals entering the trade chain need to adhere to a very high standard for animal disease standard checking and auditing, to make sure they go through all the quarantine and epidemic checking processes. While the government may have some compromise, I think specialists in public health or zoonotic disease will push back because there is no zero-risk wild animal trade and a need for more health checking for any type of trade. Currently, a lot of the wild animal trade is not considered a high-risk business for public health. A more restricted permission system can discourage people from considering the wild animal trade as an income option in China.

For traditional medicine use, there is ongoing debate in China about using animal organs. Recently, China has decided to remove endangered species from its China Medicine Dictionary, the most important dictionary to record traditional medicine. From the public health consideration and to prevent the next pandemic, any practices related to processing or handling live animals need to be restricted and managed carefully. I expect some of these will be considered under the amendment of relevant laws, but not sure if it will be sufficient or not.


A pangolin at a rescue center in Cambodia. Image by Rhett A. Butler

Will the ban on consumption of wild animals help check the illegal trade?

Within the ban, the sixth clause is to require government at all levels to improve the law enforcement management system, make clear the main body of law enforcement responsibility, increase supervision, inspection and accountability, and strictly investigate and deal with violations of this decision and relevant laws and regulations. This will require law enforcement agencies to keep illegal trade as their priority target for enforcement.

A lot of the captive-breeding farms for consumption can be an umbrella for the illegal trade. When a lot of those farms cannot continue because of the ban, the illegal trade will lose the umbrella under which it continues.

From the consumption side, several provinces announced their own regulations for wildlife protection within which they mentioned punishing consumption behavior. These clauses will alert people to the cost of these illegal consumption behaviors and stop people engaging in the illegal trade. Fewer consumers mean less income for the illegal trade, which can also help crack down on the illegal trade, in my opinion. It is great to see some of the provinces publish more restrictive regulations than the decision made at the central level.

When might the review process end and the legislative amendments be made?

According to the Legislation Law, law amendment requires a review process by the National People’s Congress Conference or the Standing Committee of National People’s Congress. The review process includes a series of consultation among various ministries, administration, committees under the Standing Committee, Congress members with relevant background for the topics, and/or public. The earliest approval could occur within the next two months while the next Congress conference is organized, according to my understanding of the process mentioned in the law and ongoing discussions in China.

[Lisbeth]

The new coronavirus emerged from the global wildlife trade – and may be devastating enough to end it

BY GEORGE WITTEMYER - 11TH APRIL 2020 - THE CONVERSATION

COVID-19 is one of countless emerging infectious diseases that are zoonotic, meaning they originate in animals. About 75% of emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic, accounting for billions of illnesses and millions of deaths annually across the globe.

When these diseases spill over to humans, the cause frequently is human behaviors, including habitat destruction and the multibillion-dollar international wildlife trade – the latter being the suspected source of the novel coronavirus.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced governments to impose severe restrictions, such as social distancing, that will have massive economic costs. But there has been less discussion about identifying and changing behaviors that contribute to the emergence of zoonotic diseases. As a conservation biologist, I believe this outbreak demonstrates the urgent need to end the global wildlife trade.

Markets for disease

As many Americans now know, the COVID-19 coronavirus is one of a family of coronaviruses commonly found in bats. It is suspected to have passed through a mammal, perhaps pangolins– the most-trafficked animal on the planet – before jumping to humans.

The virus’s spillover to humans is believed to have occurred in a so-called wet market in China. At these markets, live, wild-caught animals, farm-raised wild species and livestock frequently intermingle in conditions that are unsanitary and highly stressful for the animals. These circumstances are ripe for infection and spillover.

The current outbreak is just the latest example of viruses jumping from animals to humans. HIV is perhaps the most infamous example: It originated from chimps in central Africaand still kills hundreds of thousands of people annually. It likely jumped to humans through consumption of bushmeat, or meat from wildlife, which is also the likely origin of several Ebola oubreaks. PREDICT, a U.S.-funded nonprofit, suggests there are thousands of viral species circulating in birds and mammals that pose a direct risk to humans.

Decimating wildlife and humans


Coat made of pangolin scales, on display at the Royal Armouries in Leeds. The coat was given to King George III in 1820, along with a helmet also made with pangolin scales. Gaius Cornelius/Wikipedia

Trade in wildlife has decimated populations and species for millennia and is one of the five key drivers of wildlife declines. People hunt and deal in animals and animal parts for food, medicine and other uses. This commerce has an estimated value of US$18 billion annually just in China, which is believed to be the largest market globally for such products.

My own work focuses on African and Asian elephants, which are severely threatened by the wildlife trade. Demand for elephant ivory has caused the deaths of more than 100,000 elephants in the last 15 years.

Conservationists have been working for years to end the wildlife trade or enforce strict regulations to ensure that it is conducted in ways that do not threaten species’ survival. Initially, the focus was on stemming the decline of threatened species. But today it is evident that this trade also harms humans.

For example, conservation organizations estimate that more than 100 rangers are killed protecting wildlife every year, often by poachers and armed militias targeting high-value species such as rhinos and elephants. Violence associated with the wildlife trade affects local communities, which typically are poor and rural.

The wildlife trade’s disease implications have received less popular attention over the past decade. This may be because bushmeat trade and consumption targets less-charismatic species, provides a key protein source in some communities and is a driver of economic activity in some remote rural areas.


Smuggled leopard skin and ivory seized at New Orleans International Airport, Feb. 17, 2017. USFWS

Will China follow through?

In China, wild animal sales and consumption are deeply embedded culturally and represent an influential economic sector. Chinese authorities see them as a key revenue generator for impoverished rural communities, and have promoted national policies that encourage the trade despite its risks.

In 2002-2003, severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS – a disease caused by a zoonotic coronavirus transmitted through live wildlife markets – emerged in China and spread to 26 countries. Then as now, bats were a likely source.

In response, the Chinese government enacted strict regulations designed to end wildlife trade and its associated risks. But policies later were weakened under cultural and economic pressure.

Now repercussions from the COVID-19 pandemic are driving faster, stronger reforms. China has announced a temporary ban on all wildlife trade and a permanent ban on wildlife trade for food. Vietnam’s prime minister has proposed a similar ban, and other neighboring countries are under pressure to follow this lead.


Propaganda poster in Beijing reinforcing wildlife market crackdowns, March 11, 2020. AP Photo/Andy Wong

Conservation scientists are hearing rumors that wildlife markets on China’s borders – which often sell endangered species whose sale is banned within China – are collapsing as the spread of coronavirus cuts into tourism and related commerce. Similarly, there are reports that in Africa, trade in pangolin and other wildlife products is shrinking in response to coronavirus fears.

However, I worry that these changes won’t last. The Chinese government has already stated that its initial bans on medicinal wildlife products and wildlife products for non-consumption are temporary and will be relaxed in the future.

This is not sufficient. In my view, terminating the damaging and dangerous trade in wildlife will require concerted global pressure on the governments that allow it, plus internal campaigns to help end the demand that drives such trade. Without cultural change, the likely outcomes will be relaxed bans or an expansion of illegal wildlife trafficking.

Africa has borne the greatest costs from the illegal wildlife trade, which has ravaged its natural resources and fueled insecurity. A pandemic-driven global recession and cessation of tourism will drastically reduce income in wildlife-related industries. Poaching will likely increase, potentially for international trade, but also for local bushmeat markets. And falling tourism revenues will undercut local support for protecting wild animals.

On top of this, if COVID-19 spreads across the continent, Africa could also suffer major losses of human life from a pandemic that could have started in an illegally traded African pangolin.

Like other disasters, the COVID-19 pandemic offers an opportunity to implement solutions that will ultimately benefit humans and the planet. I hope one result is that nations join together to end the costly trade and consumption of wildlife.

Original article: https://theconversation.com/the-new-cor ... -it-133333

[Richprins]

Lis!

[Lisbeth]

[Klipspringer]

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/ ... if=Illegal

Illegal wildlife trade goes online as China shuts down markets
Online shift increases pressure on China’s tech giants over trade thrust into spotlight by coronavirus outbreak.

by Michael Standaert
24 Mar 2020


Shenzhen, China - China’s top e-commerce and express delivery operators are under pressure from the government and wildlife activists to become de facto enforcers of the country’s temporary ban on the trade in wildlife.

The ban was imposed in late January as cases of COVID-19 surged in Wuhan, where the now global pandemic was suspected to have originated in the wildlife trade or from animals trafficked into the country from abroad.

At the same time, however, conservation groups are calling on China to fully overhaul the way it governs the country’s lucrative business in order to give firms more clarity over what to target when they discover any potentially illegal activity.

In the first month of the ban, e-commerce platforms aided in the removal, deletion or blocking of information relating to 140,000 wildlife products from bush meat to animal parts used in traditional Chinese medicine, and closed down about 17,000 accounts associated with the trade, an official from China’s State Council said in late February.

The country’s Ministry of Transport has also now ordered express delivery companies to be the first line of defence in stopping transport of live animals and other wildlife products, requiring them to take extra care to inspect packages before they are shipped.

Promise to stamp out trade
China has pledged to revise the laws governing the wildlife trade, estimated in value at $74bn, according to a Chinese Academy of Engineering report released in 2017, although the changes appear to only target the consumption of meat from wildlife.

This would mean the fur and leather industry, as well as the trade in animal parts procured for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) could carry on as usual. This would allow for the trafficking of endangered or protected species. Animals known to carry viruses that can jump from animals to humans such as those that might have caused COVID-19, could also fall under the radar, conservation groups say.

“Right now, there isn’t enough regulation specifying the responsibility of online platforms,” Zhou Jinfeng, head of the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation told Al Jazeera.

“If they don’t play their role and are not able to step up their monitoring mechanisms, stopping online wildlife trade will be difficult,” he said. “I hope the government can come up with rules to urge online platforms to take their responsibility."

Over the past few weeks Zhou’s group and a network of volunteers have been helped by companies like Alibaba, Tencent, JD.com and others in a “Wildlife Free Ecommerce” campaign targeting online sales, as well as hunting tools such as bird-catching nets, bird-call machines, wildlife snares and traps and torches specifically used for hunting scorpions.

Zhou is also pressing authorities in Beijing to implement a corporate social credit system to reward or punish e-commerce companies for their part in combatting the illegal wildlife trade and hopes that by pressuring the leading companies they will be able to set the example for other smaller players. Similar systems are being used to evaluate companies across China, including by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment to discourage breaches of environmental regulations.

Grace Gabriel, Asia Director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) told Al Jazeera that the large companies have already long set precedents for combating illegal wildlife trading.

Gabriel has been working with Alibaba since 2007, when the company first began action to remove elephant ivory, tiger bone, bear bile and rhino horn from the Taobao shopping platforms and later when they did the same with pangolin scales and shark fins.

Licensing loopholes
IFAW, along with Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) and wildlife monitoring group TRAFFIC, joined companies including Alibaba and Tencent in 2017 to form the Coalition for Wildlife Trafficking Online which aims to reduce online wildlife trafficking by 80 percent by the end of 2020.

Key will be changing China’s licensing system, which until the recent ban had allowed 54 species of wildlife and the meat and animals parts to be legally raised, sold and traded.

Those legal licences allow some leeway for loopholes that are often at odds with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), to which China is a signatory.

“That licence basically became a commodity itself that can be sold,” Gabriel said. “People catch wildlife from the wild and then launder them through the [licenced] legal market.”

Gabriel says reforms are necessary to help online platforms know exactly what is legal or prohibited.

Steve Blake, head of the Beijing office for non-profit group WildAid has been working with Tencent and other platforms in recent years on how to combat the trade, but says companies faced difficulties not only because of the uncertainty over whether it was legal but also because of data privacy issues.

Tencent representatives declined to comment when approached by Al Jazeera, and Alibaba and JD.com did not respond to requests to discuss the difficulties they face in monitoring and policing the wildlife trade.

Blake says the government needs to clarify what species are off-limits and upgrade its laws to provide for better enforcement.

“It's going to take some time to go from a pretty confusing and outdated system into quickly ramping it up and having strict oversight, strong enforcement and clear guidelines,” he said.

Central to managing the trade is also being able to trace and track the sale of all wildlife, as the COVID-19 outbreak was thought to have stemmed from the creatures being sold at the Wuhan market in Hubei province, the epicentre of China's virus outbreak.

Pangolins, bats and other wildlife known to transmit coronaviruses have been named as possible carriers of COVD-19, but no evidence has been provided by China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention or other health authorities in the country to pinpoint the exact source.

China’s authorities have not provided any information regarding the epidemiological investigation into the Wuhan South China Seafood Market where the virus possibly jumped from animals to humans, sites where animals were raised or the supply chains, a World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson told Al Jazeera.

The market in Wuhan was closed in January, but it is still not known what was done with any of the animals there and whether authorities were able to do a proper investigation before the facility shut down.

A spokesperson for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not answer requests for further information about the investigation into the animal source when approached by Al Jazeera on March 20.

Richard Thomas, a spokesman for TRAFFIC, told Al Jazeera that the legality surrounding the wildlife trade itself was not that much of an issue. Far more crucial were the conditions surrounding the trade which may have given rise to diseases like SARS, Ebola and now the COVID-19 virus.

“Worldwide governments face a dilemma here: If you ban trade, you risk pushing it underground, where those dangerous conditions are likely to be prevalent - and realistically it's just a matter of time before the next zoonotic disease risk emerges,” Thomas said. “If you manage legal trade properly, the risk of disease emergence should be mitigated but it needs to be thoroughly monitored and regulated.”

It will be important for China to decide which route it will take in that regard, he said. Either path will need considerably more resources for monitoring and policing, not only of the trade itself, but also the health risks posed by the animals during the entire process from the breeding of the creatures to transporting them and their sale.

A well-monitored and regulated trade, at whatever level, would be much safer than an underground one.

“If there is a silver lining [from the outbreak], it’s that people will realise this is not just a conservation issue any more,” Gabriel said. “It’s much bigger than that.”

Additional reporting assistance provided by Zhong Yunfan

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA NEWS

[Richprins]

Much easier to track and shame!

[Lisbeth]

Wildlife trade: The unsustainability of ‘sustainable use’ (Part 1)

Opinionista • Ross Harvey • 23 April 2020

Global calls to end the wildlife trade are eminently sensible. Nonetheless, prominent academics have defended the trade on the grounds that it generates economic benefits. They argue, for instance, that if wildlife markets and breeding farms were shut down in China, 14 million people would go without livelihoods. This figure is from a newspaper article, but appears to have no scientific backing. Even if true, it seems a poor reason to support an industry that may precipitate global economic collapses like the one presently caused by Covid-19.

At the root of this debate is an ideological confrontation. On the one hand are those who call for new economic models that pivot away from treating the environment as free capital to be endlessly exploited for human consumption. On the other hand, there are those who believe in the “sustainable use” of natural resources; that better regulation can overcome the failures of the current model. The animating proposition is that a maximum sustainable yield (MSY) can be scientifically established and a quota for extraction set that doesn’t undermine “stock” replenishment ability. With the appropriate allocation of incentives and governance mechanisms to avoid over-exploitation, sustainable extraction can be achieved.

Slight problem: When this model fails, the default response is that the incentives need to be fine-tuned. So, we tinker round the edges while the planet burns.

But the South African government continues to call for increased utilisation and even the farming of wild species.

“Sustainable use” ideology ignores the complexity of ecological systems and the impact of repeated over-extraction on the functionality of those systems over time. Perhaps the starkest example of economic activities justified under the auspices of “sustainable use” is South Africa’s captive lion-breeding industry. The government and its scientific authority see it as providing a potential buffer against wild lion exploitation.

In other words, if we breed lions in captivity, we will be able to supply a sufficient volume of their derivative parts (bones, claws, teeth and paws) to satisfy consumers that would crowd out illegal procurement. This ignores the opportunity costs of the activity in terms of the negative impact on a country’s reputation. It ignores the criminality – that legal trade provides a channel for laundering illicitly procured product – embedded in the trade. And it ignores the fact that (while correlation shouldn’t be confused with causation) wild lions are being exploited for their parts in Mozambique (in the Greater Limpopo transfrontier reserve). Demand for parts continues to grow, however, resulting in industry growth from about 5,800 lions in captivity in 2013 to more than 8,000 in 2019.

Behind the ideological confrontation is a battle over the correct interpretation of Section 24 of our Constitution:

Everyone has the right to:

- an environment that is not harmful to their health or well-being; and

- to have the environment protected, for the benefit of present and future generations, through reasonable legislative and other measures that ­
prevent pollution and ecological degradation;

- promote conservation; and

- secure ecologically sustainable development and use of natural resources while promoting justifiable economic and social development.

Curiously, the phrase “sustainable utilisation” does not appear to be anywhere enshrined despite what its proponents would have us believe. The late Environmental Affairs minister, Edna Molewa, defending the captive lion breeding industry, reduced her government’s interpretation to this soundbite:

“South Africa supports the trade in legally acquired specimens such as hunting trophies and other lion specimens such as skeletons in line with our sustainable utilisation policies.” A study was under way, she said, to “strengthen the evidence base for the annual review of the export quota, in order to ensure that it is sustainable and not detrimental to wild populations”. That research concluded that South Africa should continue a legal lion bone trade under “adaptive management”.

But the parliamentary colloquium which followed Molewa’s oped in August 2018, strongly concluded – with extensive input from groups typically in favour of the government’s interpretation of “sustainable utilisation” – that the industry should be terminated. This was subsequently adopted as a parliamentary resolution.

These calls continue to go unheeded. Neither a single government report, nor responses to Parliament, acknowledge the parliamentary instruction to terminate the captive lion-breeding industry.

The government’s response, instead, was to promise a “high-level panel” (HLP) to review policies pertaining to rhino, lion, elephant and leopard management, trade and hunting. Minister Barbara Creecy took up the mantle from Molewa and has now appointed this panel. The official terms of reference, as minimalistic and vague as they were, strongly suggested premeditated support for trading in wild animals and their parts, and in favour of trophy hunting.

Moreover, the way in which panel members were selected casts a cloud of suspicion over the integrity of the process. Gazetted criteria for selection to the panel were that nominees should be experts in “sustainable use”. These concerns were raised in a detailed letter from the Wildlife Animal Protection Forum to the minister and the director-general. A government press statement from October 22, 2019 indicated that the HLP would fortify its existing position (and the statement was only released after the panel had been selected). New terms of reference were then published.

On 27 March, the government issued a call for evidence to be submitted to the HLP. It stipulated a 60-day deadline. A legal letter to the minister followed, detailing objections to this procedure.

First, the call for submissions was gazetted online, but not sent to all stakeholders.

Second, this panel exists to bolster the government’s “sustainable use” position, but it had no obvious guiding criteria for reviewing legislation or policy at the time it was constituted. When it “probes the breeding of lion in captivity” (as stated in the press release), for instance, exactly what is it probing for? Nowhere does HLP documentation state that it is designed to implement the parliamentary resolutions adopted by the National Assembly to terminate captive predator breeding.

Third, the call for submissions is “so broad and vague as to give stakeholders very little idea of the kind of information the HLP will regard as relevant, or the format in which this information should be submitted”.

Finally, the timeframe of 60 days is clearly unreasonable, given the effects of the nationwide lockdown. Moreover, “new evidence is emerging at a rapid rate about the origins of Covid-19 and the potential of humans to infect wild animals in turn.”

Beyond the premeditated HLP construction and associated procedural confusion, a number of HLP members have an apparent vested financial interest in a particular set of outcomes. This removes all pretence of independence or objectivity, two basic criteria of decent governance. In no particular order, the following panel members have potential financial interests in the outcomes:

Mr Andries Lucas van Coller is the president of the Professional Hunters’ Association of South Africa (PHASA). He is an avid supporter of all types of hunting, including of captive-bred lions. He therefore appears to have a vested financial interest not only in the panel supporting trophy hunting in general, but in supporting the entire captive lion-breeding industry specifically. How can one expect him to make objective decisions or weigh the evidence dispassionately?

Stewart Dorrington is the chairman of Custodians of Professional Hunting and Conservation South Africa. While vehemently opposed to the captive breeding of lions for canned hunting (and therefore refreshingly at odds with Van Coller), he presumably has a strong a priori interest in ensuring that trophy hunting continues to be legislatively supported.

Mr Deon Swart is the CEO of the South African Predator Association (SAPA), which represents a small minority of the country’s captive lion breeders, but is the only official body organising captive breeders. He appears to have a direct interest in perpetuating the myths on which the whole captive lion breeding industry thrives – that it has conservation value, for instance.

Ms Elizabeth Johann Lizanne Nel is the conservation manager of the SA Hunters and Game Conservation Association. Again, it is hard to see how she would read evidence questioning trophy hunting in an objective manner.

Mr Teboho Mogashoa is the president of Wildlife Ranching SA (WRSA), an organisation with an obvious interest in consumptive wildlife utilisation. A recent report and a number of academic papers have highlighted the extensive tail risks to practices in some elements of ranching that are diametrically opposed to conservation outcomes. Mr Reuben Malema is an avid supporter of legalising the trade in rhino horn and a member of the WRSA, along with Ms Mmboneni Esther Netshivhongweni (who is also on the board of directors of PHASA).

So, here we have at least seven of the 25-member panel who have potential financial interests in particular outcomes and seem unlikely to read Section 24 in a way that reflects the judiciary’s near-unanimous interpretation that ecological sustainability should be the guiding criteria for when use may or may not be appropriate.

The panel should become acquainted with these judgments, which will be outlined in Part 2 of this series, before they start their work. It remains unclear what kind of legal standing the outcome of the HLP will have or what kind of legal power its findings will give the minister in terms of setting regulation.