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| Location: |
World |
| Subject: |
Trade |
| Species: |
All Rhino Species |
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Report on 10th meeting of CITES at Harare. The main issues discussed in the corridors at the Conference concerned whales, bears and elephants. Very little was said about white rhino, although Dr George Hughes from the South Afncan delegation presented a convincing argument at a press conference, which was very well attended The overall impression of the Conference is that it is a political form with countries often more concerned about monetary contnbutions from foreign donor countries than about conservation issues. A continuous process of lobbying for votes for or against pro~s went on. with some countries (dependent on foreign aid), changing their stand almost daily, depending on to whom they last spoke.
The South African proposal.
The white rhino
The proposal from South Afirican at the 10th Conference of Parties (COPIO) was to remove the restrictions placed on the Southern Afincan White Rhinoceros at COP9. South Africa asked for a zero quota, meaning that no actual trade would be conducted until the next Conference.
The result
The proposal by South Africa to legalise trade in rhino products was rejected by one vote on 18 June, with 60 in favour of and only 32 against. As some parties without voting rights participated in the vote, SA appealed against the decision and requested a second vote, this time by secret ballot. It was thought that this would allow some countries, eg, from the European Union, to vote in favour of the proposal despite the general European opposition to trade in white rhino products. It thus came as a shock when in the second voting on 19 June, by secret ballot, the pro~ was rejected with 54 votes for, and 48 votes against - far from a two third majority.
Discussion
The poor performance of the South African rhino proposal was very disappointin& es~ly after the narrow defeat of the first proposal. The results of the voting showed a strong support for sustainable use of natural resources. Much concern, however, was raised about the trade in white rhino products, such as horn for the medicinal market in the Far East. Despite the fact that our populations are productive and growing to such an extent that rhinos have to be removed annually from Kwazulu/Natal game reserves to prevent overpopulation and habitat degradation, the concerns of the opposing parties were that a legal trade could result in an increased poaching efrort on other populations.
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Report back on CITES
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