President Mutharika Burning Ivory this Thursday
Malawians have been asked to protect and conserve Wildlife animals as the country joins the rest of the world in commemorating the World Wildlife Day this Thursday.
The day being commemorated under the theme ‘Time to Get Out with Wildlife Crime’ is to be marked by torching of 4 tons of seized ivory in demonstrating to the world that Malawi is determined to eradicate wildlife crime and prevent seized ivory from getting back into hands of illicit wildlife traders.
President Mutharika is expected to set to light the stock pile of ivory equated to roughly 500 elephants at Parliament buildings after solidarity walk from Capital Hotel roundabout.
According to Lilongwe Wildlife Trust, the seized ivory is believed to have originated not only from Malawi but also from variety of sources including neighboring countries of Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique.
Speaking at a Press briefing in Lilongwe on Wednesday, Lilongwe Wildlife Trust Marketing Manager Victoria Mopiwa said “Our message to Malawian people is that our wildlife is declining, so we need to protect our wildlife” and urged people to stop wildlife crime like poaching into protected areas (national parks), illegal wildlife trade and illegal stock of pet and wildlife animals.
Burning of ivory this Thursday, Malawi would be the eleventh country to publicly destroy ivory stockpiles in the last 21 months and first country to do so in Southern Africa since Zambia in 1992.
It is highly alleged that Malawi is just being targeted as a transit route by traffickers particularly from neighboring countries moving over 500kg at a time as records indicate, 2.6 tonnes of ivory were confiscated in May 2013 by Malawi Revenue Authority in Mzuzu and in the past 4 years there have been 40 cases of ivory trafficking at Kamuzu International Airport (KIA) alone.
However, Lilongwe Wildlife Trust says current population of elephants are estimated around 1500 which is a major decline. Records also indicates that some protected areas like Kasungu National Park, elephants have declined by over 50% in recent years that is from 2000 in early 1990’s. Besides, half of reintroduced rhino at Liwonde National Park has been lost as a result of illegal killing.
Poaching levels are reaching alarming levels and the annual economic losses due from poaching to Malawi has been calculated to be the order of K1.2 billion (US $8.4 million) (Government of Malawi (2011) Economic Evaluation of sustainable natural resource use in Malawi.
In a video documentary of about 8 minutes and 20 seconds shown to members of press, produced for the Stop Wildlife Crime and features music artists, Lawi and Sally Nyundo as Wildlife Activists, a man is heard in the background asking children probably spotted at a Wildlife centre if any of their friends, relatives or they know anyone ever seen elephant. But the children reply is ‘no’.
The documentary indicates, 71% of elephants declined in Malawi from 2002 to 2006, and Dixie Makwale, Senior parks Officer in the Department of National Parks and Wildlife therein has emphasized that if people don’t stop poaching elephants then in a decade Elephants existence in Malawians shall be history.
Director in Department of Tourism, Patricia Liabuba has also in the documentary, asked Malawians to protect wildlife animals because are very significant for Malawi tourism and job creation which may contribute to economic growth and poverty reduction.
The ‘Stop Wildlife Crime. Protect Malawi’s Wildlife’ campaign, was launched on World Wildlife Day in March 2014 as joint initiative between Lilongwe Wildlife Trust and the Department of National Parks and Wildlife. It among others aim at raise awareness about the seriousness of wildlife crime and importance of protecting natural heritage as well as reporting wildlife crime and pushing wildlife conservation issues onto agenda of decision makers.
Last year the campaign involved petition which asked government to say not to ivory and burn the confiscated ivory.
This year, the campaign is highlighting elephant poaching and ivory trafficking as serious wildlife crimes along with many other crimes including illegal logging which could soon lead to extinction of the Mulanje cedar and pet and bushmeat trades which impact wildlife welfare.
Currently, Malawi is also trying to tighten its controls by initiating a 10 year National Elephant Action Plan which aims under Elephant Protection Initiative (EPI) to secure its funding necessary to protect elephants and strengthen its efforts to crack down on traffickers who have seen Malawi as a soft target to export ivory from the country.
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