How NGOs scandalously manage to assume power in UN agency Cites

THE managing director of the USA-based Ivory Education Institute Godfrey Harris, revealed his analysis of how non-governmental organisations (NGOs) achieved overwhelming influence within the UN international wildlife trade regulating agency, Cites.

He believes that NGOs have used Cites' working groups to dominate the agenda of the agency by encouraging these small units of the powerful standing committees to reach their decisions through consensus rather than by voting.

"To demonstrate this power and to take advantage of an issue gripping the entire world, the large and monied animal rights groups now want the world to ban international wildlife trade in the products of living and dead wild animals — in direct contradiction to the founding mandate of Cites," Harris said. "They are prepared to claim that since COVID-19 might have been spread from wild animals to humans, all future trade in wild animals ought to be totally prohibited to prevent a pandemic starting in the same way in the future."

Although the World Health Organisation is yet to determine the origin of COVID-19 and has warned against drawing any premature conclusions, the big animal rights NGOs are already using the animal-to-human possibility to push for what they have long sought by other means — a total immediate ban on all international wildlife trade.

A working group to ban international wildlife trade has already been formed as a result of a proposal from Israel's Bill Clark, infamous in Cites circles for initiating the 1989 international ban on ivory trade.

Observers believe that if this Clark-initiated ploy to ban all international wildlife trade because of COVID-19 were to succeed, it would stymie (obstruct) future conservation plans and could eventually lead to the extinction of Africa's iconic wildlife. It is well accepted that Africans will not conserve wildlife if they don't benefit from it significantly.

The CEO of South Africa-based True Green Alliance, Ron Thomson, said if Cites arbitrarily broadens its mandate to include veterinary issues, "then member States should have the right to resign from the convention (Cites)" because veterinary matters were not part of Cites' original mandate.

"Cites is, and has always been, an organisation that is, and was, solely designed to make sure that trade in wild plant and wild animal populations does not cause the wild resource to be over-utilised consequent upon trade," Ron Thomson said.

The chairman of Zimbabwe Painted Dog Conservation Jerry Gotora, who, at the Cites 10th meeting in Harare in June 1997, led Africans to sing the God Bless Africa anthem when Cites granted Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe once-off international ivory sales to Japan, totalling 50 tonnes, said Cites should never expand its mandate to involve veterinary issues because "it has a very clear mandate" to regulate international trade in endangered species of fauna and flora species."

"There is no need to expand the mandate of Cites to look into veterinary issues — it is done on a regular basis by several Parties that is, Switzerland's Management Authority for Cites is the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office (FSVO),"  former Cites secretary-general and president of the Switzerland-based IWMC-World Conservation Trust Eugene La Pointe said.

It should be noted that in 1989, 27 non-governmental animal rights groups expressed their dislike for La Pointe's support for the concept of sustainable use, framed him as a threat to wildlife (in short a "bad guy") and influenced UNEP to fire him from his position as Cites secretary-general. However, an international tribunal forced UNEP to have him reinstated and fully compensated for back pay and damages when the grounds for his dismissal were proven to be based on harmful lies.

Meanwhile, the former Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority director-general and ex-CEO of the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area with the biggest elephant population on planet earth, Morrison Mtsambiwa said "there is no need to expand Cites mandate beyond trade."

"This would be one more attempt to confuse issues for Cites. There are other UN bodies dealing with zoonotic diseases (diseases that spread from animals to humans)," said Mtsambiwa.

Harris now believes that the major NGOs are using Cites working groups, assigned by the organisation's standing committees to "study" and "recommend" solutions to various problems, as their best vehicle to influence Cites policy.

Commenting on the ways the NGOs have used the working groups in the last few years, Harris notes: "Most of the recent working group sessions have been conducted via Zoom and email.

This has enhanced the dominance of the major NGOs which have both the manpower and outstanding skills in spoken and written English to prevail in these electronic exchanges."

Harris points out that while any working group must be made up of an equal number of member States and official observers, all are now dominated by the major NGOs linked to the Cites delegations of the major Western nations.

"Only the big NGOs along with the big Western countries have the resources and manpower to review the facts, write the papers, speak up at the Zoom sessions, compose the email statements and develop the reasoning for whatever position the biggies decide to adopt," he said.

The NGOs, of course, cannot vote on any Cites matter. Only members are eligible to vote. But no worries. The NGOs figured out a nifty and hidden way to get over this barrier as well. Rather than count votes in a working group, Harris notes, the NGOs adopted the position that any  decisions taken by a working group should be achieved through "consensus."

The big Western nations, unsure of how the mass of little countries might react to any given issue subjected to a vote of the member States, have not objected to this concept.

In short, consensus allows the animal rights groups to have de facto equal status with sovereign nations in the working groups. Their voices in forming the contours of a "consensus" count as much as the voice of any member country.

"The more they speak, the more insistent they are on any point, the more they come to insinuate their voice into how the "consensus" will be formulated," Harris said.

"Voilá (there it is), equality is achieved by nothing more than speaking up, speaking often, and speaking loudly.

"As a result, the major organisations become as influential as any single member nation in Cites debates, documenting developments and in the construction of summary statements."

Harris has seen this NGO technique in action from his involvement with numerous Cites working groups. He says it always gets interesting when a working group chairperson declares that a consensus was close or had, indeed, been achieved.

"How does the chairperson know that a consensus is at hand?" Harris asked. "The exact methodology has been kept a Cites secret much like the names of the Catholic Cardinals have been kept "in pectore" (in the heart) of Popes anxious to protect the safety of their choices from authoritarian regimes."

Nevertheless, Harris believes that the consensus-forming technique is governed by those who have intervened in a working group most often, most forcefully or most articulately. Once that is accomplished, the chairperson generally comes to declare that a particular position is the "consensus" view of the entire working group.

From Harris' standpoint, it isn't the brilliance of the arguments or the number of speakers in support of an idea that prevails, it is always the perseverance of the support that succeeds.

Consensus also seems to come from the point of view expressed by the final speaker whose task it is to wear down any remaining opposition. This gives a huge advantage to those countries and NGOs with the resources to be active in a working group. The little countries (including most African States) and small pro-international wild trade NGOs (all of them) are beaten on most issues before they can even start to develop or articulate their presentations.

It's against this sad reality that those favouring the sustainable use of wild trade products are now calling for all Cites working groups to reach their decisions, findings and recommendations based on the recorded votes of Cites member States.

"I concur that decisions at the working group level should be made by those organisations who represent nations as it is their role to take decisions on sovereignty issues where they can either vote for or against an issue on behalf of nations," Gotora said.

Harris recently established that wildlife NGOs in Africa are in many ways "reincarnations of the failed colonial regimes" of the 19th century — intent on exercising total control over policy in this area.

Others view the interests of the NGOs in a slightly different way.

"Africans have always consumed wildlife in a sustainable way; that's why Africa, especially southern Africa, is teeming with wildlife," Mtsambiwa said. "These NGOs are nothing but greedy institutions promoting their own interests instead of the interests of the broad majority (in Africa)."

------
Emmanuel Koro is an environmental journalist based in Johannesburg, South Africa