Nairobi, 18 April 2000 The Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Mohammed Valli Moosa today welcomed the unanimous decision by the 11th Conference of the Parties of CITES in Nairobi to downlist South Africa's African elephant population from Appendix 1 to Appendix 11.
The decision was made yesterday after which the three other SADC proponent countries (Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe) and Kenya withdrew their proposals to the COP.
Moosa said that the SADC countries had won a significant victory at the COP because the principle of trade has been entrenched by CITES at this conference. Many groups had campaigned from the end of COP 10 to put all African Elephant populations back on Appendix 1, which prohibits all forms of trade. At COP10, CITES voted to allow Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe to downlist to Appendix 11 and to sell an experimental quota of ivory in their government stocks of tusks from animals that died from natural mortality.
The Convention for the International Trade in Endangered Species is a trade agreement that protects endangered species, Moosa said, and the decision of COP11 confirms our view that the African elephant populations of more than 200,000 animals in our four Southern African countries are not endangered.
The immediate effect of the decision is that we will be able to sell elephant hides and leather goods as well as trade in live animals. All four SADC countries agreed unanimously to withdraw their proposals to sell ivory stocks because all four countries put African unity before any short-term issue of selling or not selling ivory. The unity of our continent is more important to us than the money we could derive from the ivory sales. Unlike other countries our funding of conservation is not affected by outside interest groups and commitment to it is unchanged. South Africa now has an Appendix 11 listing and a zero quota for ivory. This means that at future COPs, South Africa would not have to campaign for a downlisting but rather an amendment to request a quota.
Moosa said that the issue at stake for us is not just ivory and certainly not the funds that we would raise from conservation from the sale of the tusks. It goes to the heart of our policy on the sustainable use of natural resources and its use for poverty alleviation in rural areas.
We don't believe that Kenya's position is motivated purely by the needs of conservation in Africa. It is one thing to satisfy certain interests elsewhere in the world, but it is a totally different thing to represent the grassroots interests of the communities of your own country. Unless we carry the interests of our own communities with us, conservation on this continent will fail.
The biggest danger at this COP was that the agenda of conservation was going to be set by people who don't understand the conditions in our countries and do not even live on our continent. These people have no scientific basis for their arguments but are rather motivated by emotional or psychological feelings about certain species. The decision of COP 11 is a victory for the sustainable use and a defeat for the supporters of the total ban lobby.
As a country we are proud to fund our conservation. We prioritise it and will continue to fund it despite the other pressing social needs of our country and our people. Our record is proud and unassailable as the representatives of country after country, including Kenya, have told me time and again at this COP, Moosa said.
Moosa thanked SADC for the support, solidarity and unity that it had shown through the conference and in particular Malawi and Mozambique.
Issued by the GCIS for the South African Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Mohammed Valli Moosa
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