John Varty & Tiger Canyon

[sanjay]

Well here is another newsletter summary of John Varty. This time he shared the outcome of Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) recently held in South Africa. There was some very disturbing decision which proof that money is above all. Read it-

To Trade or Not to Trade

Hello Friends

The CITES Convention held recently in South Africa, has come to an end (Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species). CITES like the law has good intentions but it is man made and hence flawed.

Botswana who has the most elephants of any African country and the best President in the world, were motivating with Kenya, for elephants to be uplifted to Appendix I. This, if achieved, would spell the end of the trade in ivory world wide.

*This image is copyright of its original author

Kenya supported Botswana, but South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe opposed it. The European Union, USA, Canada, Russia, China, Norway, Korea and Japan also opposed the motivation to Appendix 1 and so elephants were left on Appendix 2. Ivory can continue to be traded. A sad day for elephants indeed.

What I can't understand is how can countries with no elephants affect the vote of the African elephant. Surely African leaders and African people should be responsible for their elephant populations and outsiders should not be allowed to affect the vote.

*This image is copyright of its original author

The CITES decision to close Tiger Farms in China is to be applauded. However, there can be serious repercussions to this decision. If China does close the Tiger Farms (The Chinese Government is heavily invested in some of the larger tiger farms) then some 6000 tigers on 200 farms will be destroyed.

It is these tigers that supply the lucrative body parts trade in China. Once this population is gone, the pressure will then fall on the remaining wild tigers (about 2 500 in the wild) to supply the body parts trade.

Another source of body parts will be the 8 000 captive lions in South Africa. It is well known that when a lion is shot in a canned hunt, the body parts are shipped via Pretoria or Durban to China. Once they arrive in China, they are relabeled tiger body parts and no one is any the wiser.

My question is if CITES has the power to close the tiger farms, then why didn't they close the captive lion farms in South Africa?

The only explanation is that the South African Government has no desire to close this cancerous industry. This was a golden opportunity. It's a sad day for the thousands of lions pacing up and down in dingy cages across South Africa.

*This image is copyright of its original author

Therefore the South African Government's non support of elephants to Appendix 1 and their non support of closing the lion farms in South Africa, sends out a strong and disturbing message world wide. We are more interested in money. We are more interested in trading wild animal parts.

I suggest this is against world trends. In my opinion South Africa has gone from leader to follower and a dismal follower at that. It is no coincidence that two weeks ago South Africa was voted the most corrupt country in the world.

The illegal trade in wild life products ranks fourth behind drugs, arms and human trafficking. Corruption and the illegal trade in wild life products are bedfellows, they are vital to each other's success.

While President Ian Khama has successfully combated poaching by using his army and introduced rhino into Botswana, South Africa has floundered by losing more than 5000 rhinos in the last 5 years.

One would have thought that South Africa would have sought to emulate President Ian Khama, instead they have pursued a route that is unethical and endorses cruelty. I predict that in the long term this will not sustain and in the end will rot from the inside. (By this time many more elephants and lions would have died)

*This image is copyright of its original author

However, forget about CITES, forget about rules and regulations and the mountains of documents and permits, forged or legal, circulating the globe every day. Forget about the bureaucrats trying to juggle the complex rules and regulations of CITES.

The truth is elephants, lions and tigers compete with human beings. Lions and tigers eat our domestic stock, elephants destroy our crops and eat the grass which could be eaten by our cows. They are competitors for space, food and water.

As human beings we can no longer tolerate this competition. Our population is approaching 10 billion, we need this space to grow food for ourselves. This in a nutshell, is where the game will be played and won or lost.

When I started my tiger project in the year of 2 000, there were 8 000 wild tigers and 40 000 in captivity. Today there are about 2 500 wild tigers and 80 000 in captivity. It does not take rocket science to work out what the end result will be.

"I Do not Take
The Future of the Planet
Or its Endangered Species
For Granted
....
And Neither Should You"

JV, Tiger Canyons, 2016

Tread Lightly on the Earth
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