KAZA Summit 2024: Delegates renew calls to leave CITES

Sub: Environment

Sub: Int Convention

KAZA Summit 2024:

KAZA 2024Heads of State Summit held in Livingstone, Zambia
Called for member states to withdraw from CITES.
Reason for withdrawal: The delegates cited CITES’s refusal to permit the sale of ivory and other wildlife products as unreasonable, denying the country economic benefits.

Kavango-Zambezi Trans-Frontier Conservation Area (KAZA-TFCA):

The Kavango-Zambezi Trans-Frontier Conservation Area (KAZA-TFCA) spans 520,000 square kilometers.
It includes Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, sharing borders along the Okavango and Zambezi river basins.
These countries, along with South Africa, host over two-thirds of Africa’s elephant population, estimated at 450,000.

CITES agreement

CITES is an international agreement between 184 governments to ensure that international trade in wild animals and plants does not threaten the survival of the species.
The convention entered into force in 1975 and India became the 25th party as a state that voluntarily agreed to be bound by the Convention in 1976.
All import, export and re-export of species covered under CITES must be authorised through a permit system.
CITES Appendix I lists species threatened with extinction — import or export permits for these are issued rarely and only if the purpose is not primarily commercial.
CITES Appendix II includes species not necessarily threatened with extinction but in which trade must be strictly regulated.
Every two years, the Conference of the Parties (CoP), the supreme decision-making body of CITES, applies a set of biological and trade criteria to evaluate proposals from parties to decide if a species should be in Appendix I or II.

Dispute with CITES:

The threat to leave CITES is not new; it was also discussed at the 19th CITES conference in Panama in 2022.
Southern African countries argue that high elephant populations contribute to habitat loss and human-wildlife conflict.
Monetising wildlife resources is seen as a way to fund conservation efforts, but CITES repeatedly rejects requests to open the ivory trade.
In Panama, 10 African countries declared a dispute with CITES, criticizing its shift from science-based to ideologically driven conservation models.

Tussle over ivory

1989- Global ban on ivory trade, All African elephant populations were put in Appendix l
1997- Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe were transferred to Appendix ll
2000- South Africa was transferred to Appendix ll
These countries are allowed to ‘one-off sale’ of ivory stockpiled from natural elephant deaths and seizures from poachers.
CoP17 (2016) & CoP18 (2019)– Namibia’s proposal for allowing a regular form of controlled trade in ivory by delisting the elephant populations of the four countries from Appendix II, was rejected.
CoP19 (2022)– Zimbabwe’s proposal for the same has been rejected.

Why these countries wanted to lift the trade ban:

The four southern African countries argue that their elephant populations have bounced back and that their stockpiled ivory if sold internationally, can generate much-needed revenue for elephant conservation and incentivising communities.
- Zimbabwe highlighted the country’s 166-ton ivory stockpile, valued at about $700 million.

Alternative Markets for Trophy Hunting:

Zimbabwe is seeking new markets for trophy-hunting exports due to increasing Western bans.
The European Parliament and several Western countries, including Belgium and the UK, have bannedimportsof hunting trophies from endangered species.
Zimbabwe is exploring markets in the East to continue its trophy hunting business and manage wildlife populations.

Source: DTE