Rhino horn trading & resilience of criminal networks

(Many thanks to IntLawGrrls for inviting me to contribute this introductory post)

Wildlife crime is a growing global problem, with major implications for biodiversity conservation.
The trafficking of rhinoceros horn provides a clear illustration of the difficulties that are encountered in attempting to combat the illegal transnational wildlife trade. All five species of rhinoceros are under threat; three of the five ((Black, Sumatran and Javan rhinos) have ‘critically endangered’ status on the Red List of Threatened Species produced by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, a Switzerland-based nongovernmental organisation. (prior IntLawGrrls posts here, here, here, here, and here)
While habitat destruction is contributing to a massive decline in numbers of rhinos worldwide, poaching for horn is the main culprit.
Recently I wrote a paper about the illegal trade in rhino horn, as part of the Transnational Environmental Crime Project being undertaken at the Australian National University. The project is funded by the Australian Research Council, and conducted in partnership with the Australian Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities.
About 80% of the remaining world rhinoceros population is in South Africa. In the last five years, the numbers of rhinoceros poached in that country alone has increased exponentially, rising from 13 in 2007 to 448 in 2011. The 2012 number is well on the way to surpassing 500.
The population growth rate for South Africa’s estimated 20,700 rhino is 6% per year, but rhino poaching escalated by 35% between 2010 and 2011 alone.
These figures have given rise to concern that extinction of the species is a real possibility, despite the limits on trade imposed by the 1973 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, known as CITES.
The main black market for rhino horn lies in Southeast Asia, particularly Vietnam and China, where demand is driven by a belief that horn has curative properties for a range of ailments (recently expanded to include cancer), and by its use as a status symbol amongst elites. Organized crime networks are taking advantage of opportunities, presented by cultural norms and by the wealth of the growing middle class in the region, to traffic rhino horn to these markets.
Greed is a powerful driver of the trade, with enormous profits to be made. But this alone does not alone determine the trade’s sustainability.
As my paper notes, the illegal trade in wildlife is increasingly meeting with resistance from states and the international community, in the form of law enforcement and regulatory initiatives. Both money and effort are going into training and deployment of personnel to patrol poaching hotspots. New technologies for monitoring rhinos and tracking and catching poachers and smugglers are being deployed. More international agreements, designed to strengthen political will and law enforcement responses, are being signed. Campaigns are under way to inform consumers that rhino horn has no medicinal qualities and make them aware of the horrendous consequences of the trade for the animals themselves.
So why does the illegal trade persist?

Imagine if 2010 hadn't been the Year of Biodiversity

"Biodiversity is life. Biodiversity is Our Life" That is the slogan of the United Nations International Year of Biodiversity, which draws to a close in just over a week. When Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the opening of the Year of Biodiversity, he cautioned:

A failure to protect the world's natural resources is a wake-up call for people everywhere.

The U.N. General Assembly certainly ushered the International Year .of Biodiversity out with a bang-- voting on December 21 to establish the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.
This new Intergovernmental Platform will be modeled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and is intended to be a mechanism for integrating scientific knowledge about biodiversity into policy-making.
The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services was established just in time for the International Year of Forests which begins in January 2011, and the International Decade of Biodiversity, also beginning in January 2011. Let us hope it has more success in galvanizing global action targeted at stemming our losses of biodiversity than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has had in getting global agreement on actions to stem carbon emissions.
Establishment of the Intergovernmental Platform was a bright spots in a year otherwise riddled with bad news for biodiversity.
Biodiversity loss is rapid and ongoing. Over the last 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems faster and more extensively than in any comparable period of time in human history. We are losing tropical forests, wetlands, coral reefs and grasslands at a rapid clip. Species extinctions are orders of magnitude over expected rates. The causes are clear:
►over-exploitation
►habitat loss
►invasive species
►climate change
Unfortunately, these drivers of biodiversity loss show no signs of abating. As a result, we are losing species at rates three orders of magnitude greater than would otherwise be expected.
The IUCN Red List (prior IntLawGrrls posts here, here, and here) reported that 1/5 of vertebrate species, ranging from 13% of birds to 41% of amphibians, are threatened with extinction. A similar report by the Kew Royal Botanical Gardens suggests that one-fifth of plants are similarly threatened. This is terrifying! As the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment documented, biodiversity is the foundation on which human life depends.

In 2002, the Convention of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity adopted the Strategic Plan for the Convention on Biological Diversity. The Strategic Plan set what's come to be known as the 2010 Biodiversity Target -- a commitment by the 191 parties to the Convention to

achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on Earth.

This biodiversity target was subsequently endorsed by the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the United Nations General Assembly at the 2005 World Summit Meeting, and was incorporated into the Millennium Development Goals. These developments marked an official international recognition that biodiversity loss is closely associated with environmental degradation, poverty and ill-health. This prompted the General Assembly to declare 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity.
Unfortunately, the Convention of the Parties acknowledged earlier this year that it had failed to meet the 2010 Target for halting the losses of biodiversity. The European Union similarly missed its targets. The Global Biodiversity Outlook reports deforestation continues at an alarming rate, coral reefs show major declines, and abundance has plummeted for many species. This is not to say there have been no successes.
At the Cancun meeting earlier this month, delegates were cheered that Brazil announced it had reduced tropical rainforest destruction and CO2 emissions to record low levels, and that some species, mostly charismatic macrofauna, have shown signs of recovery. As the IUCN Red List reminds us, the news is not all grim. For the first time, scientists have documented that conservation can really make a difference in stemming biodiversity loss. There is still hope. But, the time for action is now!

What is it with Dowd & food?

The effort to green next month's Democratic National Convention in Denver drew sneers this week from New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd (right). She noted a report that convention planners've "hired the first-ever Director of Greening, the environmental activist Andrea Robinson [below left]," who "hired an Official Carbon Adviser to 'measure the greenhouse-gas emissions of every placard, every plane trip, every appetizer prepared and every coffee cup tossed,'" and instructed caterers to be "'lean ‘n’ green'": No fried food, and, Dowd reports,

'on the theory that nutritious food is more vibrant, each meal should include "at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white." (Garnishes don’t count.) At least 70% of the ingredients should be organic or grown locally, to minimize emissions from fuel during transportation.

In Dowd's view all this is a distraction from real problems like "the economy that's depressed" -- a distraction due to what she calls the "eat-your-arugula chiding and chilly earnestness," the "seeming too prissy about food" perception of the Democrats' presumptive nominee, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.
This week's column was by no means the 1st in which Dowd ranted at Obama for acknowledging the existence of arugula, let alone for an aversion to sweets. She's cited such traits as indicative of a political candidate -- and, now, a political party -- out of step with America.
Seriously?
Hard to figure what's "un-American" about stating a preference for food grown in the heartland state of Colorado. Hard to figure too what's "patriotic" about limiting oneself to iceberg lettuce.
Biodiversity can be a good thing, not only because it forestalls species extinction, but also because it increases variety for consumers and markets for producers. Same too with carbon-counting: there's potential not only to slow climate change, but also to grow the economy by expanding production of recyclable implements and energy-efficient transportation. And at a time when obesity threatens America's physical and economic health, isn't attention to caloric content a welcome sign of American leadership?

On May 22

On this day in ...
... 2003 (5 years ago today), as noted in the post above, U.N. Security Council Resolution 1483 was issued. Ending 13 years of sanctions in Iraq, the resolution gave the United States and Britain a mandate to rule in that country.
... 2008 (today), is marked the International Day for Biodiversity. To further "the target of substantially reducing the loss of biodiversity and adopting an international regime on access to genetic resources and the equitable sharing of the benefits from their utilization," the Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (logo at left) is midway through its annual meeting, this year in Bonn, Germany. The Convention has 191 parties; the United States is not among them.

"Predictable" food catastrophe

A Predictable Catastrophe—that is how Jacques Diouf, Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, has described the growing world food crisis. The combined pressures of market speculation, diversion of corn to biofuel production, pressures from a changing climate, and an increased demand for meat from rapidly developing nations all contribute to the record high prices for staples like wheat, corn, and rice.
These recent events are not written on tabula rasa. Decades of International Monetary Fund-imposed structural adjustment, which forced developing countries to drastically cut agricultural subsidies and to promote production of export crops rather than food for the domestic population, created a situation in which developing countries were particularly vulnerable to the vagaries of international trade. The current crisis (prior IntLawGrrls posts here) is also at least partly attributable to the collapse of the Doha round and the failure of the United States, European Union, and Japan to eliminate domestic subsidies for agricultural production.
Where is the outrage?

I know that sitting here in New York, awash in plenty, most of my neighbors are more interested in whether fast food companies should have to post the calorie counts for their meals than the hundreds of millions of people suffering food insecurity. From a distance, it can be hard to appreciate the enormity of this problem. But, millions of the world’s poor face hunger because they simply cannot afford to feed themselves and their families. That is inexcusable!
Biofuel production poses a particular threat to the food security of women. A recent FAO analysis reports:

Unless policies are adopted in developing countries to strengthen the participation of small farmers, especially women in biofuel production by increasing their access to land, capital and technology—gender inequalities are likely to become more marked and women’s vulnerability to hunger and poverty further exacerbated.

The report also warned about threats to biodiversity and traditional knowledge posed by the replacement of local crops with monoculture energy crop plantations.
Food riots, prompted by shortages, are perhaps the most visible sign of a food system in disarray. The FAO warns that more than 30 countries face food crises. (See post below for yet another set of concerns.)

Olivier de Schutter, the newly appointed U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, certainly has his work cut out for him.

On balance, does the Earth benefit from shipping organic foods transcontinentally?

Beyond the food-crisis concerns that newest IntLawGrrl Rebecca Bratspies raises today (in a post that joins others of recent weeks), there's another concern to ponder:
Does it help the planet to buy organic foods if they traveled halfway 'round the globe to reach our plate? Or, as The New York Times put it Saturday, want "Some Carbon With Your Kiwi?"
That was the teaser for "The Environmental Cost of Shipping Groceries All Over the World," an excellent article by Elisabeth Rosenthal (below left).
Among the transcontinental food movement that Rosenthal cites:

Britain ... imports -- and exports -- 15,000 tons of waffles a year, and similarly exchanges 20 tons of bottled water with Australia.

The result's predictable:

[P]ollution -- especially carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas -- from transporting the food.

Perhaps, then, we ought to add an aphorism to prior suggestion of biodiversity dieting: Think globally, eat locally.

Whoddathunk it?

DMZ=Demilitarized Zone? Think again. In this vast swath of land between North and South Korea, Mother Nature has reclaimed her space: fields are now prairies and marshes have become home to thousands of white cranes, herons and ducks from northern China and Siberia -- and city-boy soldiers become ardent nature lovers after a transformative stint at the Seungri guard post. Created in 1953, the DMZ stretches 250 km along the 38^th parallel, 2 km deep on each side of the line. After fifty-four years free from man’s intervention, the DMZ has become a sanctuary for dozens of species, including tigers and leopards, in danger of disappearing elsewhere. One lone scientist (under heavy military escort), Kwi-gon Kim, director of the Environment Dept. at Seoul University, has been able to penetrate this wonderland of biodiversity. Since 1996, he’s been dodging the million land mines still buried here, seeing something new each time he comes. Irony of ironies, this zone created to prevent conflict is now itself a source of it, as environmentalists fight to have the DMZ designated a protected area while local authorities and citizens, unable to attract business – or brides – dream of development.
(Title credit: Mary McCarthy, The Group, 1966 movie with all-star cast.)

Holiday biodiversity

Wednesday's Food Section day in many newspapers, and today they're chockful of recipes for the United States' annual food feast, Thanksgiving. Worth a look for folks concerned about global matters, and not only because the savoring of succulent treats is a human universal.
Strong in some stories is a a message of socially responsible cooking. Cooks're to choose their holiday bird not just because it's the plumpest, their greens not just because they're the greenest. The challenge, rather, is to buy off the beaten path -- to choose a foodstuff because it's unusual, a strain that Big Food's squeezed off the supermarket shelves. Look then, for "heritage turkeys"; cook, then, with "heritage eggs."
This ought to be more than a marketing gimmick. According to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization, 1 out of 5 species that used to thrive in the world's barnyards now is endangered. It's a problem of biodiversity not less significant than the threats in the wild discussed in meetings like that of the International Mechanism of Scientific Expertise on Biodiversity in France this week.
Seems this year the holidays're a time to eat all around the food chain.