Friday 17 September 2004

The report, "Monitoring of Illegal Hunting in Elephant Range States" is published by a programme of the CITES secretariat, which regulates the international trade in endangered species. It says the impact is particularly bad in Central Africa, where elephant populations are threatened by poaching. The report comes as TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network of WWF and IUCN, publishes a list of the world's countries most implicated in the illegal ivory trade.

China, followed by Thailand, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Nigeria are the most important suppliers, manufacturers and customers of illegal ivory, according to the TRAFFIC analysis of data from the Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS).

The ETIS analysis shows that the volume of illegal ivory seizures across the world has increased since 1995. It points out that corruption and the lack of law enforcement of domestic ivory markets in Africa and Asia are fuelling the thriving illegal international trade. This often happens under the guise of legal trading of domestic ivory within the borders of individual countries.

"These domestic markets are driving the poaching of thousands of elephants each year, both in Africa and Asia", said Callum Rankine, Species Officer for WWF-UK. "With just three weeks to go before the world comes together to look at the problems of international wildlife trade, we call upon all countries, including the host country of Thailand, to close down these illegal markets."

While the demand for ivory from China is the overriding reason for the global rise in illegal trade between 1995 and 2004, the ETIS report notes that for the past two years improved law enforcement has resulted in increased ivory seizures and better monitoring.

The report also calls on Thailand to tighten its laws regulating domestic ivory markets, which according to WWF are totally inadequate to tackle the country's flourishing ivory trade.

Within Africa, where the illegal ivory trade remains rampant, there have been no improvements in DRC, Nigeria and Cameroon over the past two years. Furthermore, Angola, Mozambique, and Sudan, are emerging as problem countries.

"This is not a new problem" said Dr PJ Stephenson, Coordinator of WWF's African Elephant Programme, "but we need a new way of tackling it. Illegal ivory markets are having a major impact on elephant populations, particularly in west and central Africa, and co-ordinated action needs to be taken to bring them under control."

The report also criticises the US for lax regulation of its ivory market and Singapore for failing to report any ivory seizures in recent years.

WWF is calling on countries at CITES in Bangkok next month to increase their commitment to law enforcement and for those with domestic markets to increase their efforts to close legal loopholes and shut down the trade.