阻盜獵 全球拯救大象大作戰
摘錄自：天下雜誌 經濟學人電子報 2013/2/14
2014-02-12 Web only 作者：經濟學人
 |
| 圖片來源：flickr.com/photos/usfwsmtnprairie/ |
1月6日，中國在東莞銷毀了6噸的象牙及象牙飾品，香港和數個歐洲國家的象牙很快也得面臨相同命運。過去幾年，美國、加彭、肯亞和菲律賓都曾銷毀象牙。
這些銷毀場景並沒有1989年肯亞奈洛比國家公園燒毀象牙那麼驚人（現在象牙大多以碾壓非而火燒來銷毀，以免汙染空氣），但在阻止盜獵和拯救大象這場漫長的戰爭中，它們或許擁有同等的重要性。
奈洛比的火焰是全球禁止象牙交易的前奏曲，促使需求崩潰、盜獵減少，也讓非洲象群獲得復育的時間。但在過去5年，盜獵再次增加，估計盜獵者每年獵殺2.5萬頭大象；許多盜獵者與組織犯罪有關，而在某些地方，大象已幾近消失。
倫敦將於2月13日舉行野生動物非法交易會議，許多人也希望此會議能為反象牙盜獵聯盟帶來新的活力。象牙走私與非洲民兵團體之間的關係，讓此事成為美國等地的國安議題，亦引來科林頓夫婦等重量級政治人物的關注。非洲國家已同意強化巡邏、建立反盜獵執法單位，並強化反盜獵法律；這些措施一直有著資金不足的問題，許多人希望參與會議的富有國家能提供大部分資金。
運動人士歡迎這些計畫，但他們認為打擊供給是不夠的。1989年至今，境內擁有大象的國家兩度獲准出售自然死亡大象的象牙；在2008年第二次銷售前，保育人士提出警告，認為那可能會重振中國的象牙市場，讓盜獵再次有利可圖。
他們說得沒錯。合法銷售不但刺激需求，還模糊了所有象牙的合法性，為盜獵而得的象牙提供掩護。遊說團體WildAid的耐茲（Peter Knights）將象牙走私比作毒品交易；他表示，執法是場節節敗退的戰役，終止盜獵的唯一方法就是抑制需求。不過，禁售象牙搭配聰明的宣傳手段或許行得通；在中國，獲得明星支持的不吃魚翅宣傳活動，至今已讓總體魚翅需求減少了一半。（黃維德譯）
©The Economist Newspaper Limited 2014
The Economist
The
ivory trade
Up in smoke
By The Economist
From The Economist
Published: February 12, 2014
Feb 8th 2014 | NAIROBI | From the print edition
A push to stop poaching and save elephants from extinction.
SIX tonnes of elephant tusks and ivory trinkets were destroyed in a
tarmac crusher in the factory city of Dongguan in China on January 6th. Most of
the 33-tonne stockpile of Hong Kong—home to many of the world's most avid
buyers of ivory—as well as those of several European countries will soon meet
the same fate. In the past few years ivory has also been destroyed in the
United States, Gabon, Kenya and the Philippines.
These scenes lack both the curling smoke and dramatic setting of the
vast pyre of tusks burned in Kenya's Nairobi National Park in 1989. (Most ivory
is now destroyed by crushing, rather than burning, to avoid polluting the
atmosphere.) But they may prove equally significant in the long fight to stop
poaching and save the elephant from extinction.
The bonfire near Nairobi was the prelude to a global ban on trade in
ivory, a collapse in demand and a lull in poaching that gave the African
elephant population time to recover. But in the past five years poaching has
picked up again. An estimated 25,000 elephants are killed each year by
poachers, many of them linked to organised crime. In some places the species is
close to being wiped out.
Hopes are high that a conference on the illegal wildlife trade in
London on February 13th will give the coalition against ivory poaching new
impetus. Links between ivory traffickers and African militias such as the
Lord's Resistance Army, a thuggish band of guerrillas that originated in
Uganda, have put the issue on the national-security agenda in America and
elsewhere. The result is attention from political heavyweights including Bill
and Hillary Clinton; John Kerry, America's secretary of state; and David
Cameron, Britain's prime minister. African governments have agreed to to beef
up park patrols, create anti-poaching police units in the states where
elephants roam and strengthen anti-poaching laws. The measures have so far been
underfunded. Making them stick would cost an estimated $300m over ten years,
much of which it is hoped will come from the rich countries at the conference.
Though campaigners welcome the plan they argue that curbing the supply
of ivory is not enough. Since 1989 countries with elephant populations have
twice been allowed to sell stockpiled ivory from elephants that died naturally
under CITES, a global agreement on international trade in endangered species.
Before the second sale, in 2008, conservationists warned that it would revive
the market in China, where ivory ornaments have long been prized, and make
poaching profitable once more. They were right. The ivory bought by the Chinese
government is drip-fed onto the domestic market at a rate of five tonnes a
year. That comes nowhere close to meeting demand, estimated at 200 tonnes a
year. And the sales have coincided with an explosive increase in poaching.
Governments should destroy their stockpiles and ban the sale of ivory
from any source, argues Alex Rhodes of Stop Ivory, a group that is raising
money for the anti-poaching plan. Legal sales not only stoke demand, but create
ambiguity about the legal status of all ivory, providing cover for the sale of
poached items.
Peter Knights of WildAid, another lobby, compares ivory trafficking to
the drugs trade. Enforcement is a losing battle, he says, and the only way to
end poaching is to choke off demand. Yet a ban on ivory sales combined with
clever advertising might work. A campaign supported by stars to wean Chinese
consumers off shark fin nudged their government into dropping it from state
banquets. Overall demand for the traditional delicacy has since fallen by half.
©The Economist Newspaper Limited 2014
沒有留言:
張貼留言