亞、非政府緊急協議抗盜獵 走私野生動物列重罪

African and Asian nations where elephants are poached or their ivory is illegally shipped or sold today agreed on urgent measures to halt the illegal trade and secure the survival of African elephants.

New data released Monday shows that if poaching continues at current levels, Africa is likely to lose a fifth of its elephants in the next 10 years.

Government agreed to apply “a zero tolerance approach,” and sentence those convicted to “maximum, and therefore deterrent” penalties to combat an upsurge in poaching and smuggling of elephant ivory since 2009.

They will use a combination of existing laws and strengthened regulatory frameworks for investigation, arrest, seizure and prosecution of suspected wildlife criminals. Laws covering wildlife, corruption, money laundering, organized crime, firearms employment and terrorism may be employed for this purpose, governments agreed.

The agreement was reached at the ongoing African Elephant Summit convened by the government of Botswana and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN.

The measures were agreed by African elephant range states, including Botswana, Gabon, Kenya, Niger and Zambia, ivory transit states Vietnam, Philippines and Malaysia and ivory destination states, including China and Thailand.

One of the 14 measures the delegates committed their governments to involves classifying wildlife trafficking as a “serious crime.”

This will unlock international law enforcement cooperation provided under the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, including mutual legal assistance, asset seizure and forfeiture and extradition to hold criminals accountable for wildlife crime.

Governments also agreed to engage communities living with elephants in their conservation.

They will mobilize financial and technical resources to combat wildlife crime and attempt to reduce demand for illegal ivory.

A comprehensive analysis was issued in December for the summit. Prepared by the IUCN and two other organizations responsible for monitoring elephants, the analysis shows that following an easing in the 1990s levels of poaching and the illegal ivory trade started to increase again in the mid-2000s. The rate of increase jumped sharply after 2009. The overall trend appears to be leveling off in 2012 compared to 2011, but at an unsustainably high level.

Analysis by the program for Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants, MIKE, managed by the CITES Secretariat, suggests that 15,000 elephants were illegally killed at the 42 monitored MIKE sites in 2012.

According to MIKE, an estimated 22,000 elephants were illegally killed continent-wide in 2012, a slight reduction from the estimated 25,000 elephants poached in 2011.

The estimated poaching rate of 7.4 percent in 2012 remains at an unsustainably high level, as it exceeds natural population growth rates – usually no more than five percent.

Eighteen large scale seizures involving more than 40 tonnes have been recorded so far this year – the greatest quantity of illicit ivory seized over the last 25 years.