Africa in Transition

This is a guest post by Emily Mellgard, research associate for the Council on Foreign Relations Africa Studies program. Wildlife trafficking ranks among the top five most lucrative illicit commodities in the world, alongside drugs, human trafficking, counterfeiting, and weapons. Unfortunately, the response by the U.S. federal government is small. Africa’s friends called for President Obama to discuss the escalating slaughter of elephants and rhinos during his recent six-day trip to Africa from June 27 to July 2, 2013. Poachers are decimating Africa’s elephant and rhino populations. U.S. and international leaders have increasingly been calling attention to the links between wildlife poaching and trafficking and organized crime--even terrorism. The safari planned for the Obama family during the Africa trip, which would have been an ideal venue for a presidential statement, was cancelled due to the high security costs. Nevertheless, the president did issue an executive order to increase U.S. commitment to anti-poaching and wildlife trafficking efforts. The executive order dedicates U.S. $10 million, to combat “wildlife trafficking, related corruption, and money laundering,” in addition to funds already dedicated to that goal. This amount is painfully small given the magnitude of the fight against poaching and trafficking. Wildlife trafficking, both in live animals and animal parts, is a U.S. $7-10 billion annual business, a thousand times greater than the funds Obama pledged to combat it. Under the executive order, the United States will provide foreign governments with technical assistance and training to increase their capacity to halt trafficking on both a regional and a bilateral basis. The president is also launching a Presidential Task Force on Wildlife Trafficking and an Advisory Council on Wildlife Trafficking to develop counter-trafficking strategies. In addition, the administration recently approved a Transnational Organized Crime Reward Program, which enables the State Department to offer rewards for information leading to the arrest, dismantling, or disruption of criminal organizations outside the United States. The executive order further calls for tighter enforcement of existing U.S. domestic law and regulation on illegal wildlife trafficking relating to elephants and rhinos. The United States remains a major market for trafficked wildlife, though it is not nearly as large as China’s for ivory or Vietnam’s for rhino horn. Given current U.S. fiscal constraints, with respect to elephants and rhinos, American diplomatic pressure on consuming countries might be more effective in combating wildlife trafficking than American money. At home, moreover, the administration should mobilize the considerable force of American civil society to suppress the consumption of trafficked animals and animal parts within the United States.

Louise Arbour is the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. She is also a former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, and she is the former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Since 2009, she has been the president and CEO of the International Crisis Group. When she speaks about governance, we should pay attention. And she has just spoken, in an op-ed that she co-authored with Gilles Yabi, the West Africa project director at the International Crisis Group. The title encapsulates the argument: “Mali: Election Threatens to Exchange One Crisis for Another.” They argue that Mali’s July 28 election risks such technical shortcomings and such a low rate of participation that the new government it produces will be denied the legitimacy it needs to meet the country’s ongoing crisis. They urge a short delay in the elections, while acknowledging that is increasingly unlikely. They express deep concern that poor elections in Mali could lead to serious post-electoral violence. What to do? They have four proposals: 1)   The Malian authorities, the United Nations Mission for Stabilization in Mali, and the French forces should prepare for terrorist attacks during the electoral campaign and on election day. 2)   In the remaining three weeks, everything possible should be done to improve the registration and voting process. 3)   The Malian authorities, the UN, and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) should work together to secure “every aspect of the electoral process.” 4)   Presidential candidates should swear a solemn oath to respect to election results or to contest them by legal means. These are practical suggestions, but hard to implement. Indeed, terrorist attacks do seem likely. But it will be hard for the UN and French forces to prevent them. Electoral preparations are difficult enough in any developing country; they are particularly difficult in the aftermath of a civil war. Securing the voting process will require the UN and ECOWAS to mobilize substantial resources, and there is not much time. And oaths can be broken. But, if implemented, these proposals might, as the authors say, “prevent an imperfect election from turning into a catastrophic one. We have been warned.

This is a guest post by Emily Mellgard, research associate for the Council on Foreign Relations Africa Studies program. There is a debate over whether a tightly regulated legal trade in rhino horn could help stem the tide of rhino poaching in southern Africa. Most rhino horn, like ivory, finds its way to the Far East. The largest consumer of ivory is China. Vietnam is the largest consumer of rhino horn. It’s ground into a powder and used in traditional and modern medicines to cure everything from cancer and the flu, to hangovers, and as an aphrodisiac among the nouveau riche. It is also carved into libation cups for use in temples. The use of rhino horn is a deep-rooted tradition, even though the horn is keratin (as are human fingernails and hair) and has no medicinal properties. Will legalizing trade in rhino horn decrease the illegal slaughter of rhinos as the legalization and regulation of crocodile farming and trade decreased the poaching of wild crocodiles? Or will it have the same effect on poaching as the one-off sales of elephant ivory; causing insatiable demand and uncontrollable killings? To legalize rhino horn trade, the Convention of Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) must vote to downgrade rhinos from Appendix I (no trade) to Appendix II (partial trade) as it allowed specific countries to do with elephants in 1997. South Africa, home to over 70 percent of the world’s rhino population, announced on July 3 that they would submit a proposal for legal trade at the 2016 CITES Conference of Parties, which will be held in South Africa. When elephants were placed in Appendix I, banning the ivory trade, in 1989, ivory demand was partially met by a diversification in the market: mammoth tusks from the Siberian Arctic, animal bone, and the resale of already carved ivory. The one-off ivory sale to Japan in 1999 had little effect on poaching levels. When China became the second approved buyer in 2007, the one-off sales in 2008 caused a massive, and still escalating, demand. Advocates for the sales argued that the influx of legal ivory would decrease demand for illegal ivory, driving down poaching, but the opposite happened. The ivory stockpiles were sold by African governments in bulk, but then broken up into smaller portions and resold by the buyers for astronomical returns, which increased the bottom ceiling price. The increase in available ivory also increased the number of consumers. As legal stockpiles were depleted, demand continued to rise, providing more than enough incentive for poachers to continue hunting. Proponents of legalizing trade in rhino horn similarly argue that flooding the market with legal horn will decrease poaching; drive out the crime syndicates that control the black market trade; and provide additional funds for conservation. All profits made on the sales would be funneled back to the rhinos. Unlike elephant tusks, rhino horn is also a semi-renewable resource; it continues to grow throughout the animal’s life and can be “harvested,” some say, every three years with minimal risk. So once the current stockpiles are depleted, demand could be met by the live animals. Rather than selling the stockpiles in bulk to governments, the plan is also to turn the rhino horns over to an independent body accountable to CITES, which will sell the horns to registered buyers. It seems to be a win-win situation. Skeptics of legalization however point to the fact that the current trade ban is not adequately enforced, and partially legalizing the trade would make that task even more difficult. Because of the regulations, illegal horn will also almost certainly remain cheaper than legal horn, so the incentive for poaching does not disappear. The sale of the current stockpiles could also raise the floor of demand, making it difficult for live rhinos to meet the increased demand. There are only approximately 28,000 rhinos in the wild. There are over 92 million people in Vietnam alone. There is also the fact that many current conservation and anti-poaching initiatives have educational campaigns about the complete lack of medicinal properties of a rhino’s keratin. Legalizing trade might undermine those campaigns by making more accessible a substance people are simultaneously being told has no effect. As the next CITES Conference of Parties is not until 2016, there is time for more debate, and all sides agree that more research is necessary. There may not be as much time for the rhinos themselves however. If poaching continues to escalate at its current rate, the rhino deaths could outnumber births as soon as 2016.