UN tackles wildlife trafficking as illegal trade hits $150billion

The United Nations said it is beaming searchight on wildlife trafficking in Nigeria, following recent seizure of more than $8 million worth of elephant tusks and pangolin scales by Hong Kong customs from a shipping container coming from Nigeria, making it the biggest catch of its kind, by value and weight and ever in the city.

Over the past twelve months, a total of 25 tons of ivory and pangolin scales were seized in Asia, which allegedly originated from Nigeria, while 13 tons of its kinds were seized in Nigeria.

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC), which revealed this during activities to mark the 2019 World Wildlife Day in Abuja, noted that similar incident in October 2018 led Vietnamese authorities to intercept more than eight metric tons of pangolin scales and ivory arriving from Nigeria.

According to a statement by Mr. Sylvester Atere, Outreach and Communications Officer, UNODC, pangolins smuggled to Asia are unlikely to originate from Nigeria as the species is near extinction in the country.

“ It appears that Nigeria might risk to evolve rapidly into a transit hub for illicit wildlife products, including pangolins, elephant tusks and other protected species, destined for countries in Asia as well as Europe, the Middle East and North and South America.

“This marks a sharp increase from the almost eight tons of pangolin scales seized by States parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in 2016 and 2017”, it added.

Over the past twelve months, a total of 25 tons of ivory and pangolin scales were seized in Asia which allegedly originated from Nigeria, while 13 tons of pangolin scales were seized in Nigeria.

Meanwhile, the Nigeria Customs Service has renewed commitment towards tackling illegal wildlife trade estimated to worth over $150 billion per year.

The illegal wildlife trade which is largely driven by high demand from Asia and elsewhere is the 4th largest illegal trade in the world (after drugs, weapons & human trafficking resulting in catastrophic declines of various wildlife species across Africa such as elephants and pangolins scales.

At a workshop organized for the Nigeria Customs Service, the National Contact Point for the World Customs Organization, Regional Intelligence Liaison Office for West Africa, Abimbola Animashawun said that Nigeria has attracted international criticism and sanctions as an important transit country for the illegal wildlife trade from Central Africa to China and Vietnam.

Animashawun stressed that despite the number of arrests and seizures made by Customs, prosecution has been weak.

Also the Country Director, Nigeria Programme of Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Mr. Andrew Dunn said, “the elephant population across Nigeria and the rest of Africa has declined by 90 per cent in the last century due to hunting for ivory.

“Due to its porous borders, Nigeria has become an important transit country for the ivory trade from central Africa to China and Vietnam. There has been some huge seizures of ivory recently, illegally shipped from Nigeria. This includes 3.5 tons of ivory from Nigeria seized in Singapore in March 2018, with a value of N900 million”, he noted.

Please credit and share this article with others using this link:
https://guardian.ng/property/un-tackles-wildlife-trafficking-as-illegal-trade-hits-150billion/

Nine Tonnes of Ivory Seized in Vietnam, World’s Largest Haul

Vietnamese customs has seized over nine tonnes of ivory found in a container shipment from the Republic of Congo, thought to be the largest ivory seizure in recorded history.

Officials in the coastal city of Da Nang discovered the illicit goods during an inspection of a container of timber originating in the Congo, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a UK-based NGO, said Thursday in a press release.

Nine tonnes of ivory tusks is equivalent to over 1,000 slaughtered elephants.

All African elephants with the exception of a few populations are included in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), a multilateral treaty in effect since 1975. Commercial international trade in Appendix I species taken from the wild is prohibited.

“While we welcome today’s ivory seizure in Vietnam, we would emphasise that without follow-up efforts resulting in prosecutions and appropriate penalties, seizures alone are no deterrent to the criminals involved in wildlife trafficking,” Mary Rice, EIA’s Executive Director, said.

EIA has been investigating the illegal wildlife trade in Vietnam for some time now, documenting how the country has fast become a transit hub for ivory and other goods travelling from the continent of Africa to elsewhere in Asia, especially China, where it is used in ornaments, jewelry and traditional medicine.

China announced a ban on all trade in ivory that went into effect at the end of 2017. But while a fall 2018 survey seemed to suggest that demand for ivory was easing up, more recent research suggests that the illegal ivory trade is still going strong in trafficking hotspots, like at the China-Vietnam border.

EIA authored a report last year on the Vietnamese ivory trade, “Exposing the Hydra,” the product of a two-year investigation in which researchers posed as wildlife traders in order to infiltrate the various levels of ivory trafficking syndicates.

The report found that Vietnam has grown to be a powerful figure in the global illegal ivory trade in the past decade, partnering with major organized crime groups operating in Mozambique, South Africa and elsewhere on the continent to traffic goods into and through Vietnam.

The country also has a growing carving industry, and the number of ivory goods for sale has grown sixfold and the number of carvers tenfold between 2008 and 2015.

Between 2009 and 2018, when the report was published, 56 tonnes of ivory were seized in Vietnam and an additional 20 tonnes with links to Vietnam were confiscated in other countries, the equivalent of ivory from some 11,414 elephants. The traffickers EIA followed sold ivory for between US$150 and $400 per kilogram. At those prices, the nine tonnes seized this week would fetch between $1.35 and $4.05 million.

Vietnam may have made some large seizures in the past few years, but enforcement and prosecution remain weak, according to EIA.

This does not bode well for the African elephant.

In the early 20th century there may have been as many as 3 to 5 million African elephants roaming the continent, but conservationists estimate there are now only around 415,000 left.

Please credit and share this article with others using this link:
https://www.occrp.org/en/27-ccwatch/cc-watch-briefs/9485-nine-tonnes-of-ivory-seized-in-vietnam-world-s-largest-haul