Day: May 18, 2022

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Zimbabwe Urges Sale of Stockpile of Seized Elephant Ivory

Zimbabwe is seeking international support to be allowed to sell its stockpile of seized ivory, saying the $600 million it expects to earn is urgently needed for the conservation of its rapidly growing elephant population which it describes as “dangerous.”

Officials from the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority showed ambassadors from European Union countries the stockpile of ivory tusks that have been seized from poachers and collected from elephants that have died.

The Zimbabwean officials appealed to the European Union and other countries to support the sale of ivory which has been banned since 1989 by CITES, the international body that monitors endangered species.

Zimbabwe has 130 tons of ivory and 6 to 7 tons of rhino horn, said Mangwanya.

Envoys from the Netherlands, Germany, France, Britain, Switzerland, Canada and the United States viewed the ivory tusks in heavily guarded vaults in Harare.

Swiss ambassador to Zimbabwe Niculin Jager, speaking on behalf of the envoys, emphasized the need to fight the poaching of elephants.

“Conservation and prevention of illegal wildlife trade is an international issue because of the involvement of criminal syndicates in illegal wildlife trade, hence there is need to strengthen international co-operation,” he said.

Later this month Zimbabwe will be hosting what it calls an “elephant summit” in which representatives of 14 African countries, as well as from China and Japan, will consider ways to manage the populations of the world’s largest land animal.

“We need assistance. These elephants are multiplying at a dangerous rate, 5% per annum,” the parks and wildlife agency’s director-general, Fulton Mangwanya, said during the tour.

Zimbabwe’s estimated 100,000 elephants are double the carrying capacity of its national parks. The overcrowded elephants are destroying the trees and shrubs that are vital for them and other wildlife, say parks officials.

Zimbabwe’s elephant population is getting so big that Mangwanya warned “it will be very difficult for us to do anything but culling which is opposed by everyone.”

Neighboring Botswana has the world’s largest elephant population with more than 130,000. Together Zimbabwe and Botswana have nearly 50% of the world’s elephants. The two countries say they are struggling to cope with the booming numbers and are pressing to be allowed to sell their stockpiles of tusks seized from poachers or removed from dead elephants.

Other African countries, such as Kenya, insist that all ivory sales should be banned to discourage any international trade in ivory.

In addition to banning ivory sales, CITES in 2019 also imposed restrictions on the sales of wild elephants caught in Zimbabwe and Botswana, a move that pleased some conservationists but dismayed officials struggling to manage their overloaded parks.

There is a flourishing illegal trade in ivory in which international syndicates fund poachers to kill elephants and saw off their ivory tusks. The ivory is then smuggled overseas, where there is a demand for ivory for jewelry and trinkets.

Increased poaching and loss of habitat have made Africa’s elephant populations more endangered, the International Union for Conservation of Nature said last year.

Zimbabwe and Botswana say they are ill-equipped to deal with poachers without the money from ivory sales, especially because earnings from tourism have dwindled due to COVID—19 related travel restrictions since 2020.

Zimbabwe has pledged to use “all” proceeds from ivory sales to fund conservation in its wildlife parks and to support communities that live near parks and “bear the brunt” of conflict with the wildlife, said Mangwanya. Zimbabwe argues that funds that benefit people who live near the parks will motivate them to support the fight against poaching instead of relying on it for their livelihoods.

Zimbabwe proposes a “once-off sale in this COVID—19 pandemic era,” Mangwanya said.

“There is a great market for valuable ivory and we can’t trade to generate financial resources for the implementation of elephant management plans,” Mangwanya said. “It’s now worse with COVID and with low business in tourism where we derive our revenue from. Where do we get the money to look after the resources?” (backslash)

Source: Voice of America

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WHO Concerned Over Polio Outbreak in Southeastern Africa

The World Health Organization says authorities in Mozambique have declared an outbreak of wild poliovirus type 1 after confirming that a child in the country’s northeastern Tete province has contracted the disease. It becomes the second case of wild poliovirus confirmed in southern Africa this year, following a case in Malawi in mid-February.

In a statement, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, called the outbreak of poliovirus in Mozambique “greatly concerning."

She added that efforts were underway to help strengthen disease surveillance in Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, with plans to reach 23 million children ages five and below with the polio vaccine in the coming weeks.\

Dr. Ndoutabe Modjirom, the interim polio program coordinator for the WHO Africa Region, said that the first step is to carry out a quality vaccination campaign.

“The second measure is to reinforce the surveillance in all our countries so that they will be able to detect very, very quickly all poliovirus circulating in our region," he said. "We have to extend to all other countries the measure of surveillance. So that measure we have to take very, very quickly to address this situation.”

Dr. Norman Matara, head of the Zimbabwe Association for Doctors for Human Rights, said the outbreaks of diseases may have resulted from the lockdowns that countries around the world instituted while fighting COVID-19.

“You know with the pandemic, the lockdowns and clinics shutting down, there is a probability some infants and children might have missed their immunizations schedule and thus we now have these emergency outbreaks; measles in Zimbabwe and polio in Mozambique," he said. "So, we really urge the government that as they fight COVID-19, we should intensify immunization of children especially in those neglected areas so that every child gets immunized. We also urge the government to implement strong surveillance systems.”

Last week, Zimbabwe declared an outbreak of measles in a province on the border with Mozambique. President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government said it was working with the WHO to immunize children in the whole country.

Source: Voice of America

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US: Africa Needs Tailored Strategies to Fight ISIS Groups

African countries are being encouraged to use both soft and hard power to counter the growing threat posed by Islamic State on the continent. The U.S. government is giving more than $100 million to African states to overcome terrorism. Top U.S. security officials say African leadership and voices are needed to ensure security assistance is targeted to where it’s needed most.

Last week, security leaders from the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS pledged to support African security agencies in dealing with the terrorist activities of the Islamic State.

The coalition, which has 85 members, met in Morocco to discuss ways of dislodging fighters allied to ISIS from Mali, Burkina Faso, Mozambique and several other African countries.

Terror activities by these militants have increased in recent years, killing tens of thousands and displacing millions — creating a humanitarian crisis.

Chris Landberg. the State Department’s acting principal deputy coordinator for counterterrorism, says some African governments will receive millions of dollars to improve their efforts in fighting terrorism.

“So, we are increased in this every year, and we’re looking to use it to improve capabilities of our partnered civilian, law enforcement, and judiciary with the goals of disrupting and apprehending, prosecuting, and convicting terrorists across the continent,” he said.

Akinola Olojo, a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, says the ISIS affiliates in Africa are different from each other and will require tailored strategies to defeat them.

“While we recognize that there seems to be a similarity at a certain level, in a different way we see that even the actors involved or the insecurity actors involved as well as the way they relate with communities, the way they sort of act against the state takes different expressions. And we need to understand these nuances in order to have approaches that adequately match what is manifesting in the different contexts,” he said.

The deputy Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS Doug Hoyt said countering the militants’ messaging is critical.

“So, the coalition itself will probably continue to launch platforms against what we see as the vulnerable youth certainly in the Sahara — in the Sahel and trans-Sahara region. So, what we’re emphasizing with communications is it’s not top-down, it’s bottom-up. So we start at the local level and we work with member governments and we tailor this messaging in language and customs and traditions and what’s going on here, and we very much want the African members out front on that,” he said.

The U.N. Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, an instrument meant to enhance the international effort to counter terrorism, calls for nations to address the conditions terror groups use to spread terrorism. It also aims at building the states’ capacity to prevent and combat terrorism while adopting measures to respect human rights and the rule of law.

Olojo says African security agencies were encouraged to use different ways to tackle terrorism apart from the usual military response.

“Hard responses have a role to play, of course, but then going beyond this to address governance gaps, addressing ideologies pushed by these affiliates, addressing issues of human rights violations," he said. "Engaging communities more deeply or more effectively, having a dialogue on several levels within communities. All these components are things that are highlighted at this meeting and then we see how they fit into a broader approach.”

U.S. officials say the lessons used to weaken ISIS in Iraq and Syria can be apply in Africa but will need individuals present on the continent to get results.

Source: Voice of America