Posted on 26 March 2013
| Yaoundé, Cameroon - Central African
states on Saturday said they would mobilize
up to 1,000 soldiers and law-enforcement
officials to immediately start joint military
operations to protect the region’s last
remaining savanna elephants, threatened
by Sudanese poachers on a killing spree
in the region.
“We recommend the mobilization
of all defense and security forces in the
affected countries” to stop these poachers,
eight of the ten members of the Economic
Community of Central African States (ECCAS)
said in a joint statement at the end of
a three-day emergency anti-poaching ministerial
conference held in Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé,
on March 21-23.
The high-level conference
was held to stop what ECCAS said are about
300 heavily armed Sudanese poachers on horseback
on the prowl for elephants in the savannas
of Cameroon, the Central African Republic
and Chad.
On the night of March
14-15, in southern Chad, these poachers
killed at least 89 elephants in one night.
Since the beginning of the year, they also
slaughtered at least thirty elephants in
the Central African Republic. They are believed
to be responsible for the 300 elephants
killed in Cameroon’s Bouba N’Djida National
Park in early 2012, forcing the country
to mobilize 600 elite soldiers to defend
the country’s borders from these poachers.
Although precise figures
are difficult to come by, savanna elephant
populations in, for example, the Central
African Republic - the country with historically
the highest numbers of savanna elephants
in the region – are believed to have plummeted
from around 80,000 thirty years ago to a
few hundred today.
The emergency plan,
estimated to cost around 1.8 million euros,
calls for the use of aerial support, land
vehicles, the purchase of satellite phones,
the establishment of a joint military command
including real-time information sharing
and analysis systems, as well as for sending
a diplomatic mission to Sudan and South
Sudan – where the poachers are believed
to originate from.
Although the statement
said ECCAS states would fund these operations
themselves, they called on the international
community to “mobilize and make available
complementary funds” to sustain these efforts
now and in the future.
“This is fantastic news.
ECCAS and its member states deserve to be
congratulated for their determination to
once and for all stop these elephant killers,”
said Bas Huijbregts, head of the Central
African strand of WWF’s campaign against
illegal wildlife trade.
“Now, it is up to demand
countries – principally China and Thailand
– to show that they have as much courage
and determination as these Central African
countries,” he said.
In the statement, the
ECCAS states congratulated Thailand for
its March 3 decision to ban its legal domestic
ivory trade, and urged it to implement this
decision.
Ivory consumers “need
to be sensitized to the consequences” of
their demand for ivory, the statement said,
adding that “destination countries (should)
adopt measures to reduce ivory demand.”
Finally, the statement
added that ECCAS states should work towards
modifying national legislations so that
poaching and ivory trade become offences
“equivalent to other transnational crimes”,
such as drug and small arms trafficking.
After the declaration,
the United States ambassador to Cameroon,
Robert Jackson, said he was “pleased with
the meeting. The plan is a good one.”
“But execution is now
critical. I am, however, concerned that
there is no mention of corruption in the
statement, because it contributes directly
to the poaching and trafficking problem,”
he said.
Nicolas Berlanga Martinez,
the EU mission’s head of cooperation also
congratulated ECCAS for its initiative,
saying that “the measures adopted seem sufficiently
ambitious to respond to the urgency of the
situation, and I will remain attentive,
along with other partners, of the implementation
of this emergency plan.”
“I also salute the proposal
to reinforce collaboration between the different
ministries responsible for countering poaching
and illegal wildlife trade, and would also
urge these authorities to ensure a proper
coordination of donations from its partners,”
he added.
In the statement, the
ECCAS states reaffirmed their commitment
to protect its elephants, which they said
“belong to the natural universal heritage
of humanity”.
“The international community
stands by Central Africa,” Huijbregts, of
WWF, said.
“Now the region is in
the world’s spotlight,” he concluded.
WWF is campaigning for
greater protection of threatened species
such as rhinos, tigers and elephants. In
order to save endangered animals, source,
transit and demand countries must all improve
law enforcement, customs controls and judicial
systems. WWF is also urging governments
in consumer countries to undertake demand
reduction efforts to curb the use of endangered
species products.
