As the UAE CITES Management Authority should be aware, the export of live elephants from Namibia is restricted to in situ conservation programmes, by virtue of the annotation applied to the Appendix II listing of Namibia’s population. Apart from the serious abrogation of CITES regulations, all captures of wild elephants for captive facilities are inherently cruel and do not contribute to conservation, according to IUCN AfESG; it is totally irresponsible and counter-intuitive to even consider capturing wild elephants especially during the hot months.
PREN scientists, conservationists and elephant experts have already stressed the impacts this sale will have and the implications on the conservation of this unique population which will be irreversibly and negatively affected by such destructive actions. Exporting wild caught elephants from Namibia in these circumstances will be detrimental to the species and population concerned, and as such we believe would be in further contravention of CITES regulations.
Also attached hereto, for your urgent attention and response is a Legal Opinion on this subject matter which finds that it would not be lawful for the Namibia CITES Management Authority to issue an export permit under either Appendix I or Appendix II of CITES and that, similarly, it would not be lawful for a country outside of the range states for Loxodonta Africana to issue an import permit.
For all the aforementioned reasons, we call on the governments of Namibia and the UAE to urgently halt this transaction.
The following Members of the Pro Elephant Network have signed in support of this communication:
Owais Awan Advocate High Court, Islamabad
Suparna Baksi-Ganguly President and Co-Founder, Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation Center, Bangalore, India
Dr Brett Bard Veterinarian, South Africa
Dr Jessica Bell Rizzolo Postdoctoral Researcher, the Conservation Criminology Lab, Dep of Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State University
Janey Clegg Committee Member, SPCA Mutare, Zimbabwe
Professor David Bilchitz Director, South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public and Human Rights and International Law – South Africa
Megan Carr Founder, Rhinos in Africa
Lenin Chisaira Founder, Advocates 4 Earth – Green Law Connect, Zimbabwe
Dr Betsy Coville Wildlife Veterinarian – USA
Dr Harvey Croze DPhil (Oxon) Collaborating Researcher – Amboseli Trust for Elephants – Kenya
Nomusa Dube Founder, Zimbabwe Elephant Foundation
David Ebert Advocate, Founder Director of The Animal Defense Partnership – USA
Stefania Falcon Co-Founder, Future 4 Wildlife – South Africa
Michele Franko Captive Elephant Caregiver and Advocate – USA
Chief Stephen Fritz Indigenous Leader, South Peninsula Khoi Council – South Africa
Dr Toni Frohoff Ethologist and Behavioral Biologist, Founder of TerraMar
Dr Ross Harvey Environmental Economist, Botswana
Heike Henderson-Altenstein Director, Future for Elephants e.V.
Alok Hisarwala Gupta Lawyer, Animal Law – India
Peter Hodgskin Founder, Hands-off Fernkloof, South Africa
Sangita Iyer B.Sc., M.A., Founder of Voice for Asian Elephants Society, Nat Geo Explorer and Wildlife Filmmaker
Lynne James Independent, Elephant Conservation, Zimbabwe
David Kabambo Founder Director of Peace for Conservation – Wildlife Management – Tanzania
Dr Paula Kahumbu WildlifeDirect, Kenya
Professor Mohan Kharel Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal
Jim Karani Advocate, Lawyers for Animal Protection in Africa – Kenya
Dr Winnie Kiiru Founder, Conservation Kenya
Brigitte Kornetzky President and Founder of Elefanten in Not – Switzerland / India
Kahindi Lekalhaile Africa Network for Animal Welfare, Kenya
Dr Smaragda Louw Director, Ban Animal Trading, South Africa
Giorgio Lombardi Warden Vogelgat Private Nature Reserve, South Africa
Linda Masudze Advocate 4 Earth, Zimbabwe
Varda Mehrotra Environmentalist, Climate Crisis Researcher – India
Dr Cynthia Moss Director, Amboseli Trust for Elephants, Kenya
Sharon Pincott Elephant Behavioural Specialist, ex-Hwange, Zimbabwe
Michele Pickover Director, EMS Foundation, South Africa
Ian Redmond OBE Ian Redmond OBE – Founder, African Ele-Fund and Elefriends Campaign, Chairman of Ape Alliance and Co-Founder of Rebalance Earth
Ingo Schmidinger Elephant Husbandry – Co-Founder iScapes
Dr Nurzhafarina Binti Othman Founder: Seratu Aatai, Elephant Conservation and Research Coordinator at HUTAN-KOCP – Malaysia
Dr Jan Schmidt-Burbach Veterinarian, Head of Wildlife Research and Animal Welfare, World Animal Protection International
Dr DJ Schubert Wildlife Biologist, Animal Welfare Institute – USA
Dr Liz Tyson Animal Welfare Law, Programs Director – Born Free USA
Antoinette Van de Water Director, Bring the Elephant Home, South Africa
Vasanthi Vadi CEO – Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations – India
Prof Dan Wylie Rhodes University, South Africa
Image Credit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_elephant
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