Progress against wildlife crime under threat if attention fades, Africa’s leaders warn

Increase international cooperation to beat the illegal wildlife trade, but help boost conservation’s benefits to people, key conference told

Africa’s progress protecting its wildlife could falter if global efforts ebb, or growing populations fail to see rewards from conservation, the continent’s leaders warned the London Conference on the Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT). Several African Head of State - all of whom are members of the Giants Club, an initiative of the international conservation organisation Space for Giants - warned that the battle to save endangered species would be lost without greater attention and cooperative action.

More than 1,000 delegates attended the IWT Conference, one of the largest of its kind, convened by the British Government and addressed by both Prince William and the British Prime Minister, Theresa May.

In a powerful speech, President Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon said “The illegal wildlife trade is a pervasive issue that cripples economies, poisons and degrades ecosystems, corrupts our judiciaries and weakens the rule of law. Wildlife criminals empty our oceans and forests and steal our timber, mine our natural resources for economic gain, and even sometimes use their ill-gotten gains to fund rebels and terrorist groups.

“I and my fellow African Heads of State are here because this is a critical issue for Africa. But it’s an issue that we, the international community, have thus far failed to take seriously enough.”

President Mokgweetsi Masisi of Botswana told the conference elephant populations had increased in his country. But the cost and effort to look after those herds, which were too large in some places, must be shared.

“We would ask that as a contributor to the biodiversity of the world that the rest...who benefit from it also play their part by putting in what it takes to protect this resource,” President Masisi said. “There’s an urgent need to strengthen collaboration and engagement across source, transit and destination countries.”

Cooperation between countries in Africa was growing, he said, highlighting work already underway in the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, known as Kaza. It crosses the borders of Botswana, Angola, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, and holds well over half of the world’s remaining 415,000 elephants.

“Part of putting that [collaboration] in place would be supporting our neighbours in their ability to offload some of the excess [elephants] we have, and we’ve committed to engaging them very sincerely and seriously in enabling that,” President Masisi said.

Greater international support must also accelerate Africa’s own efforts to increase the rewards its populations receive from conservation, the conference was told. “These communities must benefit in a tangible manner if they are to coexist with wildlife,” President Masisi said.

Margaret Kenyatta, the First Lady of Kenya and a passionate advocate for conservation, described new conservation education programmes in her country to “mitigate human-wildlife conflict and enhance human-wildlife coexistence”.

“The Kenyan government intends to step up its efforts...by collaborating with local communities to increase their investment towards protection of our iconic species,” Mrs Kenyatta said.

Increasing the value conservation represented to people would “resonate with Kenya’s pursuit for sustainable development which requires diverse interventions to protect our natural habitat,” she added.

Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, warned that there must be a greater focus on supporting what he called “social metamorphosis” in Africa’s growing but still largely agrarian populations.

If developing economies industrialised and moved from being based on small-holder farming to services, ICT and manufacturing, then work to protect natural resources would be far simpler, he said.

“In that case it would be easy to manage conservation but if you maintain under-development and the population is growing, then you may talk of conservation but I think you may not be serious,” President Museveni said.

“We still have a huge number of people in agriculture, and that’s where the danger is: the conflict between these people who are engaged in primitive agriculture against the conservation, the forests, the wetlands, the wildlife.

“So in the case of Uganda for sure you cannot talk of sustainable conservation if you don’t talk of social metamorphosis of society. We must industrialise Uganda. We’re doing it anyway. What we want is support from you.”

The joint Declaration signed at the end of the two-day conference acknowledged Africa’s leaders’ calls for greater global collaboration to beat wildlife crime, calling international cooperation “essential”.

The Declaration also recognised how important it was that the people who live alongside wildlife “acknowledge the value of protected species and habitats, and the benefit this value can bring”.

Its signatories concluded: “We confirm our intention to build upon the successes already achieved and to this end we commit ourselves to enhance our individual and collective efforts to meet our existing commitments.”

What was key was directing efforts to support the priorities Africa’s leaders laid out at the conference, said Dr Max Graham, CEO of Space for Giants, an international conservation charity.

“They’ve said it loud and clear: help us to protect our wildlife, especially when their habitat crosses borders and we need smart, coordinated, stitched-up interventions to keep them safe,” he said.

“And they’ve said, help us to show the value of conserving wildlife and wild landscapes to our people. They know better than anyone that these are the fastest paths to protecting wildlife forever. We would all do well to listen, follow their lead, and focus where they tell us to.”