简体中文
By APD Writer Wang Baocai
Thirty-Two African countries on Friday called on the European Union to stop its ivory trade at a conference in Botswana aimed at saving African elephants.
Presidents Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Ali Bongo of Gabon and host Ian Khama of Botswana wrote a petition along with representatives of 29 other countries appealed the "EU to close its ivory market".
According to global advocacy group Avaaz, the EU is the world's biggest importer of legal ivory but that is thought to fuel poaching. "What we see is that Europe has become both a destination and transit hub for illegal ivory," Avaaz campaign director Bert Wander said. Wander said EU officials had told the campaign organizers that "they couldn't ban ivory because not enough African leaders wanted them to".
Botswana's Environment Minister Tshekedi Khama said "the reason that the EU must close the trade is because China has closed that avenue".
On this conference, these African countries leaders tore down the hypocrisy of western countries (including Japan) and showed their ugly faces to the world.
For a long time, the international community always criticizes that Chinese ivory trade has caused the decrease of savanna elephant number. For the western countries, they are regarded as the protectors and has been playing roles like superman, batman, X-man, etc., to savanna elephants.
As an old Chinese saying goes that a distant journey tests the strength of a horse and a long task proves the character of a man. On this conference, African countries’ appeals showed that the western countries were, are and will be always the real killers of the savanna elephants. It is different with political issues that the Chinese ban on ivory trade was only in consideration of pure responsibility and concerns. But, for the western countries, they can find many excuses to cover their selfishness and interests. So, I guess, they will continue to play a good show in two ways:
Firstly, I agree that I am ugly. What can you do?
Japan is the typical country. In Japanese minds, they are just an island country and do not need care about other countries’ feelings. Even the whole worlds have banned ivory trade, but it is none of their business.
In the past 3 years, on www.yahoo.co.jp, 12 tons of ivories were sold. From 2011 to 2016, the illegal ivory product was 2.42 tons.
Japanese ivory trade inspired the killing to savanna elephants and many African countries have strongly criticized Japan. But, nothing has changed. The similar things happened in Japan before, such as whaling for scientific researching.
Secondly, I will let every one know that against the ivory trade. But when you ask me to obey the regulation, I have one blind eye.
The complete ban on the ivory trade was a consensus between China and the U.S. in the past few years. China has banned the ivory trade since Dec. 31, 2017 (one month later for Hong Kong) and closed all ivory manufactures.
When African countries turned their eyes to the U.S., the Trump administration said Americans can take their ivories to home as the “spoils of war”. Some Americans also explained that their legal hunting help to reduce the survivable pressure for the elephant number, which is too large to support them. The hunting also supplies money for the local government to better protect elephants.
If you agree with this logic, killing is for the better protection, I will ask you why we will protect elephants? Is the number too large? Because the number is decreasing sharply, we have to protect them. If you really want to protect savanna elephants, you should not kill them or criticize others, like what China has done before, in the name of “democracy” or “freedom”. You should help the local governments to develop their economy, to enhance the infrastructure, to build hospitals and schools, like the Chinese government is doing here. When a country’s economy has developed, no one wants to kill savanna elephants to make this bloody money.
By now, I fail to find any western countries that can understand Chinese ideas. What I can predict is that hundreds and thousands of elephants will be killed to meets western countries demands in so-called legal excuses. The Chinese ivory ban can only save some of savanna elephants, but not all.
Wang Baocai is an instructor of institute of Xi'an high & new tech. He has written about military equipment, operation, international relationship and geopolitics for multiple publications for many years.The article reflects the author's opinion, and not necessarily the views of APD
.
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
