Minister blames US, EU for poaching

Environment minister Oppah Muchinguri

Muchinguri in Harare Wednesday at a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) – a 1973 global treaty drawn up to ensure international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival.

The breakfast meeting sought to garner support from African countries ahead of the CITES 17th Session of the Conference of Parties (COP 17) to be held in South Africa this September.

Muchinguri said some countries were now using CITES to undermine economic growth in developing countries such as Zimbabwe.

She said the American government banned trophies hunted from Zimbabwe from entering the US while the EU parliament was lobbying for a similar ban in Europe with the support of some wildlife deficient African nations.

“Protectionist approaches do not bring any direct benefits to rural communities that face the brunt of living in perennial problems of human-wildlife conflict,” said the minister.

“A case in point is the move by western countries to ban the importation of elephant and lion trophies in their countries from producer countries such as Zimbabwe.”

Trade bans, Muchinguri added, “have ever saved species from extinction”.

“The rhino species which is now teetering on the brink of extinction has been on the CITIES Appendix 1 for the last 40 years.”

The trade bans only serve to perpetuate “illegal wildlife trafficking and poaching as well as exacerbating human wildlife conflict”.

The environment minister also said that some CITES decision making mechanisms excluded the participation of local people who bear the “brunt of core existing with wildlife”.

“Community based initiatives must therefore be given the support they need to deliver income to local people through legal wildlife utilisation.”