Save Amboseli Update - 5th February
2007
Dear Friends of Amboseli
All seems to be relatively quiet on the Amboseli front (although
I hear dark rumours that there may be another push by the government
to proceed with the degazetting in the not too distant future.
However, I am not going to speculate at this stage).
However, there is some news which may have a direct bearing
on the elephants in Amboseli and that is Tanzania has proposed
to the next CITES meeting (Convention in International Trade
in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna & Flora) to be held
in The Hague, 2nd – 15th June, that it should be allowed
to sell its stockpile of ivory (up to 100 tons), trade in live
specimens for non-commercial purposes and continue its trade
in hunting trophies. Getting accurate information out of Tanzania
has always been notoriously hard but worryingly there have been
some major ivory seizures emanating from Tanzania (over 5,000
kg in total) in the last year and I fear that the proposal will
make matters even worse.
This proposal is extremely dangerous. It is likely to increase
the vulnerability not only of elephants in Tanzania but right
across much Africa. In particular, the elephants of Amboseli
regularly travel across the border onto the slopes of Kilimanjaro
and the plains to the north-west of the mountain. I, myself,
saw a poached elephant there a few years ago and I understand
that there is a continuing level of ivory poaching. This could
increase if the proposal is approved.
I shall be at CITES with a team from Born Free and other experts
from the Species Survival Network arguing on behalf of the elephants
that such a move would be disastrous. Anyway, I thought you
should know this latest news and, of course, any readers of
this email who have information about ivory being sold in their
country or (if they are Africa-based) poaching incidents that
you feel that we may not be aware of, do let me know.
Finally, on a more positive note (hopefully!) I and a small
Born Free team are taking part in the 10 to 4 Mount Kenya Bike
Challenge on Mount Kenya (17th February) to raise funds for
conservation and communities around the mountain, a world-heritage
site. If you or you know anyone who would like to sponsor us
in this 70 km bone-crushing endeavour (I have not been on a
bike for months!) do please go to my Just Giving site at www.justgiving.com/wtravers.
Thank you so much for your help and support.
More news when I have it.
Best wishes
Will Travers