11
Dec 2008 - There is an ongoing boom in construction
of new and expansion of existing facilities
for downhill skiing across many parts of
central and south-eastern Europe, especially
in Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine.
Most if not all of these areas are being
developed with significant public sector
support, including state and EU funds as
well as considerable political backing.
And yet a number of
factors, including rising energy costs,
climate change and external costs including
water abstraction and biodiversity loss
suggest that many of these areas warrant
critical appraisal of long-term costs and
benefits, both in terms of profitability
as well as public interest. These are the
main results of a study just released by
the WWF Danube-Carpathian Programme.
“We need to think twice
about the ski areas we are building across
our region,” said Andreas Beckmann, deputy
director for the WWF Danube-Carpathian Programme,
who authored the study. “Thanks especially
to climate change and other factors, in
many cases we risk having ‘white elephants’
dotting our increasingly green mountains
– expensive investments whose cost, both
financial as well as social and environmental,
exceed their supposed usefulness”.
Ski areas are sprouting
across the Carpathian Mountains, the Balkan
and Rila-Rhodope mountains like mushrooms
after the rain, promoted by EU and state
funds and political support. In Romania,
the government-approved programme for development
of ski tourism, Ski in Romania, foresees
construction or expansion of over 30 ski
resorts across the Carpathian areas of the
country, including projects in 8 national
parks.
Bukovel, a massive ski
area that is being stamped out of the ground
in the Carpathians south of Ivano-Frankivsk
in Ukraine, is expected to be one of the
very largest in Europe, and indeed the world,
with 100,000 beds, and 66 lifts, with total
investment expected to reach a whopping
€3 billion.
Few if any of the ski
developments appear to seriously take into
account the growing realities of climate
change. Projected increases in temperature
of 2 to 5.2 degrees Celsius within the next
decades are likely to drive a nail into
the coffin of many of the existing or planned
ski areas in the region, most of which are
located at less than 1,500 m a.s.l. below
which snow cover is increasingly uncertain.
Many areas are being
constructed in national parks and other
protected areas, often with inadequate or
no proper assessment of impacts on nature
values. Bulgaria in particular has become
notorious for a string of illegal developments,
including a number of ski pistes, lifts
and roads being built into Rila National
Park, one of the country’s most iconic natural
sites, in breach of a number of legal requirements.
These and other illegal developments in
the country’s greatest protected areas have
provoked a groundswell of public concern
among Bulgarians.
In Slovakia, the Tatras
National Park, the country’s most iconic
national symbol, has been effectively opened
to developments of ski and tourism facilities,
prompting a warning from IUCN, the world
conservation union, that it could lose international
recognition as a national park.
“Particularly at a time
of financial crisis and strained economies,
public authorities, including national and
regional governments as well as EU institutions,
must take a much more critical look at the
ski developments that are being developed
throughout our region, as the development
benefit of these projects could be limited,
especially given the realities of climate
change,” said Beckmann.
+ More
Myanmar hot spot for
elephant smuggling and ivory
10 Dec 2008 - Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia - Around 250 live Asian
Elephants have been smuggled from Myanmar
in the past decade, mostly destined for
“elephant trekking” tourism activities in
neighbouring Thailand, a new report by the
wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC
reveals today.
Meanwhile blatant illegal
ivory trade continues in Myanmar, with TRAFFIC
surveys of 14 markets and three border markets
in Thailand and China finding 9,000 pieces
of ivory and 16 whole tusks for sale.
Retailers generally
displayed ivory and other elephant parts
quite openly and rarely hesitated in disclosing
smuggling techniques and other illegal activities
to TRAFFIC staff posing as potential buyers.
The smuggling of live
elephants, ivory and other elephant parts
out of Myanmar and into neighbouring China
and Thailand occurs in blatant contravention
of national laws and CITES (the Convention
on International Trade in Endangered Species
of Wild Fauna and Flora).
Chris Shepherd, Senior
Programme Officer with TRAFFIC, said the
report confirmed a serious lack of law enforcement
and a blatant disregard for international
conventions and national laws in Myanmar
and neighbouring states.
“Females and juvenile
elephants are particularly targeted to supply
the demand from the tourism industry in
Thailand, where they are put to work in
elephant trekking centres,” said Shepherd.
“Our research found evidence of corruption
allowing the illicit smuggling of ivory
and elephants to take place.”
No cross-border trade
of live elephants has been reported to CITES
by either Myanmar or Thailand. Some traders
questioned claimed elephants had disappeared
from parts of Myanmar, owing to numbers
captured for the live trade.
“Anecdotal reports of
elephant disappearances, together with the
large volume of ivory and elephant parts
consistently observed for sale at markets
over a period of several years suggests
that trade poses a significant threat to
the survival of Asian Elephants in Myanmar,”
said Vincent Nijman, a co-author of the
report.
TRAFFIC and WWF call
on authorities in Myanmar to work closely
with enforcement officers in neighbouring
Thailand and China to address the illegal
trade in live elephants and ivory.
“Both Thailand and China
must do much more to increase enforcement
and crack down on this insidious trade,”
said Susan Lieberman, Director of WWF International’s
Species Programme.
“Myanmar has the potential
to become a major stronghold for Asian Elephants;
it’s a pity that illegal capture and killing
are pushing elephants towards extinction
there,” said Ajay Desai, Co-Chair of the
IUCN Asian Elephant Specialist Group, adding:
“Neighboring countries need seriously to
reconsider their policy on the use of captive
elephants and also enforce laws to stop
illegal trade in wildlife products.”
Both Thailand and Myanmar
are also members of the ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement
Network, a regional network established
to promote cross-border collaboration to
tackle illegal wildlife trade.
