SADC Community Leaders President Warns: 'UN Wildlife Agency Is Destroying Africa's Wildlife'

President of Southern Africa Community Leaders Network (CLN), Dr Rodgers Lubilo,  has declared that CITES has "completely failed" as a platform to deliver legal ivory and rhino horn trade. 

He warned that unless Southern Africans begin mobilising their governments to pursue alternative and legal trade pathways outside the CITES system without violating its trade regulations, elephant and rhino conservation across the region will face irreversible collapse.

The outcry comes after Namibia's proposal for limited, regulated trade in raw ivory and rhino horn was rejected at CITES CoP20 in Samarkand City, Uzbekistan, despite strong backing from scientists and support from major consumer markets such as China and Japan. For the millions of  residents from rural communities represented by the CLN and share their land with elephants and rhinos and also carrying the financial and human cost of living with wildlife; the anti-trade vote was a bitter blow for elephant and rhino conservation.

Speaking moments after the decision, Dr Lubilo said the overwhelming rejection demonstrated that CITES member states have "no interest whatsoever" in practical conservation models that reward the countries that protect and maintain the world's last great elephant and rhino populations.

"CITES member countries that voted against Namibia's proposal should expect an unexpected reaction from our communities," he warned. "Their no-vote is a death warrant for elephants and rhinos because it takes away the incentives that rural people need to conserve these species."

He argued that the CITES Secretariat's pre-vote recommendations, claiming Namibia's proposals were unjustifiable, were both unfounded and deeply damaging, influencing many countries worldwide to vote against a region that has long demonstrated conservation success.

"That recommendation and the anti-trade vote that followed, have contributed significantly to the destruction of Africa's wildlife economy," said CLN President Dr Lubilo. "We cannot conserve elephants and rhinos on knee-jerk, short-term aid that disappears without warning. Such approaches have shamefully reduced our governments to beggars."

Dr Lubilo cited the abrupt withdrawal earlier this year of major US developmental and environmental programmes funding worldwide, as proof that donor-dependent conservation is unsustainable. "One day the money flows; the next day it vanishes. How can Africa rely on that when rhino and elephant conservation is a 24/7 job? Our wildlife deserves better," he said.

Meanwhile, Dr Lubilo has warned that as communities lose faith in the economic value of wildlife, many are already considering converting wildlife management areas into agricultural land; an outcome he described as "catastrophic but inevitable under the current CITES  ivory and rhino horn trade ban."

"If wildlife cannot pay its way, people will naturally turn to crops and livestock as viable alternative land use options. Once that shift happens, habitat disappears; both the CITES Secretariat and the anti-trade member countries of this UN wildlife international trade regulating agency will have caused the wildlife destruction they claim to prevent," he said.

The disappointing reaction to the anti-trade vote was visible on the SADC delegation's faces and in their post-vote speeches, culminating in an extraordinary moment when Zimbabwe appealed for international donations; moments after Namibia's ivory and rhino horn trade proposals were defeated by an overwhelming anti-trade vote by CITES member countries. To Dr Lubilo, this provided evidence of the humiliating dependency that the UN international wildlife trade regulating agency, CITES promotes.

"This is exactly what animal rights NGOs want," he said. "They celebrate blocking African proposals, then use it in fundraising campaigns: ‘We stopped Namibia, please donate more so we can keep the ban forever.' 

Meanwhile, rural Africans continue to suffer, so do SADC elephant and rhino-owning countries and in sharp ironic contrast the poachers and illegal ivory and rhino horn syndicates continue to profit."

Dr Lubilo insisted that Southern Africa must now begin exploring expert-recommended legal alternatives that allow legal rhino horn and ivory trade without violating CITES rules. He noted that these options had long been dismissed or ignored because  SADC governments hoped CITES would eventually permit international trade.

"It is now obvious CITES will never allow legal ivory or rhino horn trade," he said firmly. "Fifty years is enough. It is time for bold, fresh alternatives."

Among these alternatives, he pointed to expert-endorsed domestic rhino horn powder trade for therapeutic and aphrodisiac purposes; a model he says could flourish under the slogan: "If you cannot sell to Asia, bring the Asian markets to Southern Africa." Tourists would consume the horn lawfully within Southern Africa and return home empty-handed but with memories strong enough to draw repeat visits with family and friends, he argued.

Dr Lubilo declared: "CITES has chosen poachers and illegal syndicates over legal African trade. It has reduced SADC countries to exploited custodians of elephants and rhinos; species we protect but are not allowed to benefit from. This CITES system is broken beyond repair and it's 50th year anniversary celebration means nothing as long as it continues to ban trade in ivory and rhino horn for countries that deserve to trade."

Calling for leadership reminiscent of transformative African political giants of yesteryear, he added: "Somewhere in Southern Africa, a revolutionary Nelson Mandela of elephant and rhino conservation must rise, someone who will end CITES' unjust economic sanctions on ivory and rhino horn and restore dignity, sovereignty and sustainability to African wildlife conservation."
Unless that moment comes soon, he warned, the region risks losing everything: its wildlife, its habitats and the community incentives that have kept both alive.

"It is simple," Dr Lubilo said. "If it pays, it stays. If CITES refuses trade forever, then CITES, not Africa, will be responsible for the disappearance of our elephants and rhinos."

About the writer: Emmanuel Koro is a Johannesburg-based, international award-winning environmental journalist who writes independently on environmental and developmental issues.