Zimbabwe to ask permission to sell ivory stocks

HARARE, Aug 22  - Zimbabwe has accumulated 50 tonnes of ivory and will ask the international body regulating its trade for permission to auction its stocks to fund conservation of the animals, the head of the country's wildlife agency said on Wednesday.
The ivory has been confiscated from poachers or recovered as a result of natural deaths or government-sanctioned elephant culls, officials said.
Zimbabwe says it needs to raise extra funds to deal with its burgeoning elephant population, which at about 100,000 is one of the largest in Africa.

Adult elephants consume about 100 to 300 kgs (220 to 660 pounds) of food a day, studies have shown, and officials say their growing numbers are straining the impoverished country's resources and posing a threat to plant life.
Some $30 million is required each year for conservation of the animals and anti-poaching in Zimbabwe, but Vitalis Chadenga, director-general of the Parks and Wildlife Management Authority,
told Reuters the current budget was "very far from there".

"There is a point where our elephant population can get so much to a point where they self destruct and this is happening in some of the parks," he said.

In 2008, Zimbabwe was allowed to conduct a one-off sale of 3.9 tonnes of ivory by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the international group that governs trade in plants and animals.
Plagued by corruption, Zimbabwe provided detailed documents to CITES showing how the money raised from the sale went directly into conservation.
Zimbabwe faces an October deadline to make its request to CITES if it wants to quickly sell the tusks.
However, conservationists worry the sale could fuel demand for ivory, especially in the fast-growing emerging economic powers of Asia where it is often used in carved ornaments.
Although elephants are prolific in Zimbabwe, poaching and a loss of habitat have made them a threatened species in large parts of Africa.
A global ban on the ivory trade was imposed in 1989 and was widely credited with stemming the relentless slaughter of African elephants in countries such as Kenya.
Occasional auctions from African government stockpiles have since been sanctioned. Chadenga said the global ban was not working. We have not had a legitimate sale of ivory now but we continue to have an upsurge in poaching," he said.

Extract from a Zambezi Society special bulletin

"We believe that there should be NO MINING (prospecting or exploration included) in this area because of potential impacts on its biodiversity, wildlife and sensitive eco-systems, which are globally important, and on its wilderness areas which are valuable to international tourism.

Furthermore, World Heritage status is not awarded lightly. There are less than 200 sites worldwide on UNESCO’s ‘natural sites’ listing; and in the Society’s view, Zimbabwe’s national interests will be best served by maintaining the integrity of the area, and prohibiting activities such as mining that will result in its degradation and possible loss of its World Heritage status.

A media statement in early July 2012 issued by a Zimbabwe-based mining company, Habbard Investments (affiliated to Geo Associates) announced its intention to carry out an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for prospecting for Heavy Mineral Sand Deposits (HMSD) in the Ruckomechi and Chewore Rivers in northern Zimbabwe. It called for comments to be sent to an EIA consultancy company IMPACO by a deadline of 17th July 2012.
The Ruckomechi River lies within the Mana Pools National Park and the Chewore River forms the boundary between the Sapi & Chewore Safari Areas. Both rivers are within the UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Biosphere Reserve and the Important Bird Area (IBA)boundaries (see BACKGROUND NOTES 2, 3 & 4 attached to this statement).

Prior to submitting an objection by the required date, The Zambezi Society met with Mr Paul Chimbodza, CEO of Geo Associates, the proponent of the project, who explained that in September 2011 his company had been issued two licences to undertake exploration activities for HMSDs in these rivers, covering an area from the escarpment to the Zambezi River (45km for Ruckomechi and 65km for Chewore). The licences are due to expire in September 2012, but are renewable (see BACKGROUND NOTE 5 attached to this statement).

The HMSDs covered in the prospecting licence include copper, lead, zinc, manganese, tungsten, magnetite, tantalum, and titanium group minerals. If exploration was successful, the subsequent mining methods to extract these minerals from the riverbeds would include dredging and earth moving on a large scale, with sands being transported away in heavy machinery for processing at a nearby urban centre. The Zambezi Society questions why such heavy impact operations need to target ecologically-sensitive protected areas like the Zambezi Valley when there are alternative sources elsewhere, in less vulnerable areas.

The Zambezi Society’s investigations in July 2012 showed that the company, IMPACO , was not listed by Zimbabwe’s Environmental Management Agency as an “approved” consultancy to conduct EIAs.

The Zambezi Society has drawn the attention of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee to this issue. This Committee has the power to list a World Heritage property as being “In Danger” if it is considered to be threatened by any of the following criteria: depletion of wildlife resources through poaching, deterioration of natural beauty through mining impacts, threats to its integrity through increased human encroachment, lack of an adequate or implemented management plan. In the opinion of The Zambezi Society, all of these apply. (For a more detailed list of the “World Heritage In Danger” criteria, see BACKGROUND NOTE 6 attached to this statement).

The Society has also expressed its concern about this situation to its international contacts. Media reports and petitions against the threat are appearing in the local and international media. The international tourism industry is issuing statements of alarm. These could well impact upon next year’s meeting of the UNWTO being hosted by Zimbabwe and Zambia in Victoria Falls in August 2013.

A social media Facebook community page called SAVE MANA POOLS has been launched to campaign against the mining threat at http://www.facebook.com/SaveMana  It is fast gaining momentum.

If you are on Facebook, please go to the page and "Like" it.

The message is clear for Mana Pools/Sapi/Chewore:

NO COMPROMISE. NO MINING IN A WORLD HERITAGE SITE!"

Zambezi Society

Elephants and rhinos in Australia 'could control damaging wild grasses'

Elephants and rhinoceros should be introduced to the Australian outback to control the impact of damaging wild grasses, according to an Australian professor of environmental change biology. But other Australian academics warned the proposal risked its own set of problems.

Prof David Bowman of the University of Tasmania says the giant African gamba grass, introduced as food for livestock in the 1930s, wreaks havoc on the landscape and provides dangerous fuel for wildfires across northern and central Australia.

"Australia has a deeply troubled ecology and current land management approaches are failing," he said.

Because of its height, gamba grass almost completely replaces native vegetation. Its fuel load is up to eight times greater than that of native grasses meaning it burns with greater intensity and produces substantial greenhouse gases.

Bowman estimates that at least 5% of the Australian continent was burnt in massive fires last year, an area three times the size of England. He says, if unchecked, the gamba grass has the potential to grow to cover an equivalent area of the country.

In an article for Nature magazine, Bowman proposes introducing large herbivores like elephants and rhinoceroses as a way of containing Gamba grass which can grow to four meters in height.

"It is too big for marsupial grazers (kangaroos) and for cattle or buffalo, the largest feral mammals," he said.

"I'm talking about using elephants as a machine or ecological tool to manage this grass," he said in an interview for the Guardian, acknowledging that his proposal is radical and has major risks associated with it.

"You'd use all the sophisticated technology available to manage and husband the elephants, containing and tracking them with GPS collars and tracking their fertility," he said.

Scientists at Charles Darwin University in Darwin acknowledge the urgent need to tackle the spread of gamba grass, which has been declared a pest by the government, but say conventional methods will work.

"There is an urgent need for action but we need to pursue the problem in a conventional, strategic and well-resourced way," according to Dr Samantha Setterfield, associate professor of environmental management and ecology at the university.

"Introducing elephants is a very extreme proposal that would have very significant social and environmental impacts," she said.

"It suggests that we've exhausted the conventional options like the use of common herbicides like roundup which work on gamba grass," she said.

Ricky Spencer, senior lecturer with the Native and Pest Animal unit at the University of Western Sydney says introducing elephants would pose significant problems.

"If we did go down the road of introducing elephants to Australia, we had better develop the technology to clone saber-tooth tigers to eventually control the elephants," he said in a statement.

The biggest opposition to Bowman's suggestion though is likely to come from Australian quarantine authorities which impose some of the world's strictest requirements on the importation of animals. Currently the importation of both rhinos and elephants is prohibited under the Quarantine Act, according to a spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Animals destined for zoos may only be imported under special provisions.

Saharan Cheetah

The Saharan Cheetah




The Saharan Cheetah (also known as the Northwest African Cheetah Acinonyx jubatus hecki. These majestic and sleek animals differ from sub-Saharan cheetahs in the several ways. They're smaller, with coats that are shorter, whiter and have spots that fade from black (around the spine) to brown (around the legs). Their faces have fewer spots, and sometimes lack tear stripes. They have also adapted their behaviour to the incredibly arid and hot Sahara Desert by becoming more nocturnal than their sub-Saharan counterparts.

Their total population is believed to number 250 individuals, and they are classified by the IUCN as Critically Endangered. However, this is – at best – a guestimate, and remarkably little is known about these elusive animals. In an attempt to improve knowledge of the numbers, whereabouts and conservation concerns of Saharan Cheetahs, researchers from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and the Office du Parc National de l’Ahaggar (OPNA) set out a 2800 km2 camera trap survey of the central Sahara. The images that these camera traps have taken have been nothing short of remarkable, and demonstrate how exceptionally useful camera traps can be.

























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