Under cheetah deal, sought India’s support on lifting the ivory ban: Namibia

Under cheetah deal, sought India’s support on lifting the ivory ban: Namibia

Subject : Environment

Context–

• IN THE deal it signed with Namibia to fly in cheetahs, India agreed to promote “sustainable utilisation and management of biodiversity” by supporting advances in this area of bilateral cooperation “ at international forums including meetings of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna” (CITES).
• While the word “ivory” has not been mentioned, Namibia has already sought India’s backing, under the commitment to support “sustainable management” at the CITES, for its longstanding proposal to allow trade in ivory derived from elephants of Namibia, Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

India’s standpoint–

• India has backed a total ban on the ivory trade since the 1980s.
• Namibia is seeking India’s support in the 19th meeting of the CITES Conference of the Parties (CoP19) due in Panamanext month.
• India has been against removing the ban on the international ivory trade despite having an ivory stockpile of an estimated 20- 30,000 kg worth over $250 million, stored with the forest departments of various states.
• India and Kenya together sponsored the proposal in CoP-12 (2002) to put the southern African elephants back in Appendix-I.

Namibia’s stand on ivory trade–

• On July 20, 2022, India’s Environment Minister signed the deal on “Wildlife Conservation and Sustainable Biodiversity Utilisation” with Namibia’s Deputy Prime Minister Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah to bring cheetahs home.
• Namibia and the other three southern African countries – Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe– argue that their elephant populations have bounced back and their stockpiled ivory, if sold internationally, can generate much-needed revenue for elephant conservation and incentivising communities.

Key points of India-Namibia agreement–

• It is learnt that the key areas of cooperation in the India- Namibia agreement are:
  • Biodiversity conservation with a specific focus on the restoration of cheetahs in their former range areas through the exchange of expertise and capacities.
  • Wildlife conservation and sustainable biodiversity utilisation by sharing good practices in technological applications, mechanisms of livelihood generation for local communities, and sustainable management of biodiversity. Support advances in these spheres at international forums including meetings of the CITES.
  • Collaboration in areas of climate change, environmental governance, pollution and waste management.
  • Train Namibian personnel in smart patrol and population estimation techniques, and facilitate surveillance and monitoring equipment.
  • Two seats for Namibia at the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun. Legally binding on both parties, the five-year agreement will automatically renew for successive five-year periods unless it is terminated by either party through a six-month notice. The agreement can be amended mutually with a three-month notice.

CITES stand–

• CITES said, there was a sharp spike in elephant poaching across the globe when the trade in ivory was allowed by the CITES in 1999 and 2008.
• The ivory trade was globally banned in 1989 and all African elephant populations were put in CITES Appendix-I.
• The populations of Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe were transferred to Appendix- II in 1997 and South Africa’s in 2000.
• No trade is allowed in species listed in CITES Appendix-I while trade is strictly regulated in those under Appendix II.
• In 1999 and 2008,Namibia, along with Zimbabwe and, later, Botswana and South Africa, was permitted by CITES to conduct one-off sales of ivory stockpiled from natural elephant deaths and seizures from poachers.

Subsequently, Namibia’s proposal for allowing a regular form of controlled trade in ivory by delisting the elephant populations of the four countries from CITES Appendix II was rejected at the CoP17 (2016) and CoP18 (2019).

Living Planet Report 2022: Wildlife populations decline by 69% in 50 years

Report findings-

• There has been a 69 per cent decline in the abundance of the wildlife populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish, across the globe in the last 50 years, according to the latest Living Planet Report by World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). 
  • Annual report links climate change and biodiversity loss for 1st time. Biodiversity loss and climate crisis should be dealt with as one instead of two different issues as they are intertwined.
• The highest decline (94 per cent) was in Latin America and the Caribbean region.
• Africa recorded a 66 per cent fall in its wildlife populations from 1970-2018 and the Asia Pacific 55 per cent.
• Freshwater species populations globally were reduced by 83 per cent, confirming that the planet is experiencing a “biodiversity and climate crisis”.
  • Habitat loss and barriers to migration routes were responsible for about half of the threats to monitored migratory fish species.
• Mangroves continue to be lost to aquaculture, agriculture and coastal development at a rate of 0.13 per cent per year.
  • Many mangroves are also degraded by overexploitation and pollution, alongside natural stressors such as storms and coastal erosion.
  • Mangrove loss represents a loss of habitat for biodiversity and the loss of ecosystem services for coastal communities.
  • Around 137 square kilometres of the Sundarbans mangrove forest in India and Bangladesh has been eroded since 1985, reducing land and ecosystem services for many of the 10 million people who live there, the analysis showed.

Key threats–

• WWF identified six key threats to biodiversity — agriculture, hunting, logging, pollution, invasive species and climate change — to highlight ‘threat hotspots’ for terrestrial vertebrates.

Living Planet Report-

• It is published every 2 years by WWF.
• It is a comprehensive study of trends in global biodiversity and the health of the planet.
• The report presents a comprehensive overview of the state of the natural world through the Living Planet Index (LPI).

Living Planet Index (LPI)-

• The Living Planet Index (LPI), featuring about 32,000 populations of 5,230 species across the world, showed that vertebrate wildlife populations are plummeting at a particularly staggering rate in tropical regions of the world.
• It is a measure of the state of the world’s biological diversity based on population trends of vertebrate species in terrestrial, freshwater and marine habitats.

Ecological footprint-

• The ecological footprint is the biologically productive area needed to provide for everything used by people: fruits and vegetables, fish, wood, fibres, absorption of CO2 from fossil fuels use, and space for buildings and roads.
  • It is currently developed by Global Footprint Network (an independent think-tank). The GHG footprint and carbon footprint are a component of the Ecological Footprint.
  • Humanity’s Ecological Footprint for 2014 was 7 planet Earth’s. This meant that humanity’s demands were 1.7 times faster than what the Earth’s ecosystems renewed.

According to the National Footprints Accounts (2014), India has a bio-capacity of approximately 0.45 gha per person, which means it is a ‘bio-capacity debtor’ or an ‘ecologically deficit country’ with a 148 per cent more demand than supply on its natural resources.