News / National
Zimbabwe ivory stockpiles continue to soar
13 Dec 2015 at 04:09hrs | Views
THE suspension of Zimbabwe by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) to trade in ivory is impacting negatively on Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZimPark)'s efforts to generate revenue for its conservation activities, an official said.
The authority requires about $10 million annually for various administration costs. Major costs are incurred in retrieving ivory from the field, treating it for preservation, transporting to different centres for storage and for security.
The Government's proposals for special permission to sell its ivory before the expiry of the moratorium have not been successful over the years. A nine-year moratorium was sanctioned by the Cites in 2007 in a bid to curb illegal trade in ivory, which threatened both elephants and rhinos with extinction.
Sales of ivory to America constituted about 80 percent and to add woes to Zimbabwe its alternative ivory trading partner, China also announced a one year moratorium on the import of ivory carvings.
ZimParks director general Mr Edson Chidziya said the country's ivory stockpile was continuously increasing from many sources such as culling of problem animals and natural deaths.
He, however, could not be drawn to divulge the quantities and their value but the Minister of Environment, Water and Climate Change Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri is on record saying the country's ivory stockpile stood at 78 000 kilogrammes with a value of US$12 million.
"I shall not mention figures but just know it's quite a huge pile and right now under the circumstances its dead stock and we are not realising any value from it.
"So we need to unlock that through working together with the international community to allay their fears in terms of possible laundering and other people coming in with ill-gotten wildlife products like ivory and rhino horns," Mr Chidziya said.
He said ZimParks and Government continue to lobby Cites to give it a reprieve to sell the ivory so as to enable the authority to effectively carry out its mandate of preserving and conserving wildlife.
"As a country I think our position has always been very clear. We stand for sustainable utilisation of resources and that includes natural products that we harvest from the forest, our national parks. Ivory is a by-product of that process of conservation that we are involved in and inevitably it will always accumulate.
"We must be allowed to utilise those resources to generate the revenue that we need to plough back into our mandate, which is protection and conservation . . . and we will continue to lobby for that so that at the end of the day reason will prevail and people will see that we stand for legitimacy in terms of utilisation of what we believe is ours," Mr Chidziya said.
The local market, which is largely unaffected by the moratorium, lacks the wherewithal to consume significant amounts. Ivory traders argue that the wholesale price of ivory and the licence fee to engage in the business is prohibitive.
Conservationist and safari farmer Mr Langton Masunda said the ivory bans were hindering the country from generating revenue as consumptive tourism contributed significantly to the fiscus.
"The bans on ivory trading are economically crippling conservation efforts and the other symptoms are that people are not benefitting and in the event of animal-human conflict people tend to engage in poaching activities.
"It is also retrogressive because we have an over population of elephants and there is competition for grazing between the elephants and other smaller species, a situation which impacts negatively on bio-diversity," Mr Masunda said.
Mr Chidziya said, following fresh cyanide elephant poaching syndicates, the authority embarked on a number of activities to motivate its staff and significantly improved their co-operation with security forces as well as communities.
"We have also engaged in serious risk management in terms of staff quotations — bringing new blood-new energy and also making sure that we don't allow people to get so familiar to the environment.
"We are also trying to move in the technology side of things to enhance our monitoring capability but also be mindful that we still need to make sure that a rapid response capability is actually under-pinned by resources on the ground in terms of adequate rangers," he said.
Zimbabwe has an estimated elephant population of 83 000.
Last Thursday, China donated vehicles and equipment worth more than $2 million to ZimParks to help fight poaching.
The equipment includes eight Foton trucks, 10 Foton off-road vehicles, three dumper trucks, four Foton Motor Graders, seven Foton pick-ups, eight Foton tractors and their spare parts.
There are also 30 solar chargers, sleeping bags, climbing shoes, flashlights, raincoats, telescopes, handheld GPS locators and other materials for use by rangers while on the field.
The equipment has a combined value of $2 037 799 and would be shared between Hwange and Mana Pools National Parks.
The first batch of trucks has been received while the second and third batches comprising dumper trucks and handheld equipment have started arriving in Harare.
The authority requires about $10 million annually for various administration costs. Major costs are incurred in retrieving ivory from the field, treating it for preservation, transporting to different centres for storage and for security.
The Government's proposals for special permission to sell its ivory before the expiry of the moratorium have not been successful over the years. A nine-year moratorium was sanctioned by the Cites in 2007 in a bid to curb illegal trade in ivory, which threatened both elephants and rhinos with extinction.
Sales of ivory to America constituted about 80 percent and to add woes to Zimbabwe its alternative ivory trading partner, China also announced a one year moratorium on the import of ivory carvings.
ZimParks director general Mr Edson Chidziya said the country's ivory stockpile was continuously increasing from many sources such as culling of problem animals and natural deaths.
He, however, could not be drawn to divulge the quantities and their value but the Minister of Environment, Water and Climate Change Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri is on record saying the country's ivory stockpile stood at 78 000 kilogrammes with a value of US$12 million.
"I shall not mention figures but just know it's quite a huge pile and right now under the circumstances its dead stock and we are not realising any value from it.
"So we need to unlock that through working together with the international community to allay their fears in terms of possible laundering and other people coming in with ill-gotten wildlife products like ivory and rhino horns," Mr Chidziya said.
He said ZimParks and Government continue to lobby Cites to give it a reprieve to sell the ivory so as to enable the authority to effectively carry out its mandate of preserving and conserving wildlife.
"As a country I think our position has always been very clear. We stand for sustainable utilisation of resources and that includes natural products that we harvest from the forest, our national parks. Ivory is a by-product of that process of conservation that we are involved in and inevitably it will always accumulate.
"We must be allowed to utilise those resources to generate the revenue that we need to plough back into our mandate, which is protection and conservation . . . and we will continue to lobby for that so that at the end of the day reason will prevail and people will see that we stand for legitimacy in terms of utilisation of what we believe is ours," Mr Chidziya said.
The local market, which is largely unaffected by the moratorium, lacks the wherewithal to consume significant amounts. Ivory traders argue that the wholesale price of ivory and the licence fee to engage in the business is prohibitive.
Conservationist and safari farmer Mr Langton Masunda said the ivory bans were hindering the country from generating revenue as consumptive tourism contributed significantly to the fiscus.
"The bans on ivory trading are economically crippling conservation efforts and the other symptoms are that people are not benefitting and in the event of animal-human conflict people tend to engage in poaching activities.
"It is also retrogressive because we have an over population of elephants and there is competition for grazing between the elephants and other smaller species, a situation which impacts negatively on bio-diversity," Mr Masunda said.
Mr Chidziya said, following fresh cyanide elephant poaching syndicates, the authority embarked on a number of activities to motivate its staff and significantly improved their co-operation with security forces as well as communities.
"We have also engaged in serious risk management in terms of staff quotations — bringing new blood-new energy and also making sure that we don't allow people to get so familiar to the environment.
"We are also trying to move in the technology side of things to enhance our monitoring capability but also be mindful that we still need to make sure that a rapid response capability is actually under-pinned by resources on the ground in terms of adequate rangers," he said.
Zimbabwe has an estimated elephant population of 83 000.
Last Thursday, China donated vehicles and equipment worth more than $2 million to ZimParks to help fight poaching.
The equipment includes eight Foton trucks, 10 Foton off-road vehicles, three dumper trucks, four Foton Motor Graders, seven Foton pick-ups, eight Foton tractors and their spare parts.
There are also 30 solar chargers, sleeping bags, climbing shoes, flashlights, raincoats, telescopes, handheld GPS locators and other materials for use by rangers while on the field.
The equipment has a combined value of $2 037 799 and would be shared between Hwange and Mana Pools National Parks.
The first batch of trucks has been received while the second and third batches comprising dumper trucks and handheld equipment have started arriving in Harare.
Source - sundaynews
