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Posted Sunday, June 8 2014 at 10:23
Washington. A United States judge on Friday declined to lift a ban on importing sport-hunted African elephant trophies from Zimbabwe and Tanzania. The decision is a major setback for Tanzania, which has appealed to the US government to drop its stance.
In a 12-page decision, US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson rejected pleas by Safari Club International for a preliminary injunction that would lift the moratorium imposed by the Fish and Wildlife Service. Authorities here say the decision was made in haste.
It comes less than a month after minister for Natural Resources and Tourism Lazaro Nyalandu said there were plans to appeal to the US government to reverse the ban which, he insisted, would be harmful to wildlife conservation in Tanzania. Mr Nyalandu could not be reached for comment on the latest development.
The minister has argued that the ban on the trophies was made in haste. He said the government had started negotiations with the US authorities and he was ready to travel to the US and put his case on the table.
The minister was speaking on the sidelines of a two-day conference on stopping wildlife crime and advancing wildlife conservation that ended yesterday in Dar es Salaam.
In its decision on April 4, 2014, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) said the ban had been imposed because elephants in Tanzania and Zimbabwe face an uncertain future. Questionable management practices, poor law enforcement and weak governance have resulted in uncontrolled poaching and catastrophic population declines in Tanzania, said the USFWS.
But Mr Nyalandu argues that the ban will adversely affect wildlife conservation in Tanzania since 65 per cent of conservation funds are derived from tourist hunting. According to the minister, the USFWS made its decision based on the elephant population in the Selous Game Reserve and not the entire country--which paints a totally different picture.
The Fish and Wildlife Service announced the import suspension, lasting through 2014, in early April. Officials cited a "significant decline" in the elephant population and accused Tanzania of questionable management practices, lack of effective law enforcement and weak governance--which has reportedly led to "uncontrolled poaching".
Safari Club sued, claiming the moratorium harmed the recreational, conservationist and economic interests of its members. "The record includes declarations from two hunters who began elephant hunting before April 4, 2014, and shot and killed elephants after that date but could not export trophies such as hides and tusks because of the suspensions," Judge Jackson recounted.
Safari Club further trumpeted claims, according to Judge Jackson, that "other members with hunts planned for later in the year have not yet decided whether or not to cancel their trips."
The judge said this was not sufficient to support a preliminary injunction. "Notwithstanding the ‘great emotional significance' of an elephant trophy," she added, "hunters may still engage in the core recreational activity of hunting. So while the ‘full enjoyment of the hunt' may be diminished, it has not been eliminated," Judge Jackson reasoned, adding that "it is worth noting that a hunter must successfully shoot an elephant in order to garner a trophy worth importing."
The elephant population in the Selous-Mikumi and Ruaha-Rungwa Ecosystems Census Results of 2013 report, launched in Dar es Salaam recently, indicates that only 13,084 elephants are left in the Mikumi-Selous ecosystems. Mr Nyalandu said the USFWS imposed a similar ban on Kenya some years back but, contrary to expectations, elephant poaching surged in that country's national parks. Two months ago, a US-based hunting and conservation organisation with over 30,000 members worldwide went to court to challenge the USFWS.
The group said USFWS issued the ban without consulting the nations affected or the hunters impacted.
Lub says in the lawsuit filed in the District of Columbia that sport hunting employs approximately 3,700 people in Tanzania and supports over 88,000 families.
Furthermore, the group said, the revenue accrued from sport hunting provides local communities with conservation resources and incentives and discourages poaching. "The loss of this revenue could be devastating to elephant survival," said the SCI in the lawsuit made available to The Citizen.
Source;The Citizen