Peace for elephants
Harare
CITES is devoted to regulating international trade of animal and plant species and derivatives. Now, there is a split between consumers and a few African ivory range states producers : the first are, under the current trade status, reluctant to buy ivory – including Japan where 60 environmental groups signed-on to an open letter against the downlisting – but the producers want to sell ivory at all costs.
Through the regulation of international trade, CITES obviously has as its ultimate aim the long-term conservation of threatened species. In this case it is concerned with Loxodonta africana, and cannot consider changing its guidelines according to political and administrative borders. The African elephant population is clearly distinguished through biological continuity throughout the African continent. Though, elephants are said to be intelligent, they could not expected to understand that, for instance, along the northern Zambesi bank they are listed on Appendix I, while along the southern bank, they could be subject to trade. The three southern African proposals are not acceptable because elephants are a migratory species and are listed as such by the Bonn Convention on migratory species. Thus, they must form the subject of regional and interregional arrangements. African elephants could contribute to unifing African countries.
The Forgotten Arctic
Aberdeen
All northern hemisphere whales under the responsibility of the IWC are dependent on the Arctic Ocean and adjacent seas. However the Arctic is subject to an exploitation of natural resources which is becoming more and more intense.
One of the AEPS (Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy) working groups stated in its 1996 report that “issues of concern in the Arctic are : the past dumping of radioactive wastes ; the possible future dumping of liquid radioactive wastes ; the potential of future dumping of contaminated dredged materials for increased shipping activities ; and the possibility of future dumping associated with the potential growth of Arctic towns and cities.”
