Project update - November 2005

Fighting chimpanzee smuggling with CITES
Report by Roz Reeve, DSWF CITES representative

On the evening of 28th January 2005, a quarantine official at Nairobi airport noticed a wooden crate on the conveyor belt amongst luggage being unloaded from a flight from Cairo. Fingers poking through air holes in the side had caught his eye. Crammed into the filthy crate were six chimpanzees and four monkeys. Two of the chimpanzees, all youngsters aged between 8 months and 4 years, were suffering from shotgun wounds and another later died of pneumonia. The starving and dehyrdrated animals, which were in transit back to Nigeria without proper documentation, were seized and handed over to Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS). Three months later, I visited the surviving chimps at Sweetwaters Sanctuary near Mt Kenya. Happy and healthy, the only visible signs of the trauma they had suffered were the healed shotgun wounds.

The Sweetwaters chimps are among the lucky few that find their way into sanctuaries belonging to PASA, the Pan African Sanctuary Alliance. The unlucky ones fall victim to the bushmeat trade or to an illegal trade in great apes for pets and private zoos that has flourished for well over a decade. PASA sanctuaries at present care for 684 chimpanzees, 90% of which are wild born. Over the last five years their numbers have increased by 50%. For every live chimpanzee caught by poachers, several more are killed for the bushmeat trade. Babies and juveniles selected for the live trade are often injured and traumatized from witnessing their mothers being killing and hacked up. It's a gruesome trade and one that shows no signs of abating.

The Nairobi seizure left several questions unanswered. Who was behind the smuggling? Why were the chimpanzees and monkeys travelling from Cairo (a more likely destination) to Nigeria (a more likely source)? An investigation into the case, co-funded by DSWF, revealed a smuggling ring that had been operating between Nigeria and Cairo for at least a decade. The Sweetwaters chimpanzees were among countless numbers of animals listed as endangered by CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) that had been smuggled out of Kano in northern Nigeria where forged documents were readily obtainable. Cairo was believed to be their intended destination but airport officials stopped the shipment and, instead of following proper procedure and seizing it, loaded the animals back on a plane to Nigeria.

Full details of the investigation have been handed over to CITES officials and for the moment remain confidential. But DSWF's involvement in the case was to prove very timely. In October last year at the biennial CITES conference in Bangkok, DSWF, working with KWS and partner organizations IFAW and WildAid, gained unanimous support for a resolution enabling the establishment of ad hoc CITES enforcement task forces to combat illegal trade in highly endangered species. This achievement marked a breakthrough in the fight against wildlife crime through CITES and paved the way for DSWF to propose a Great Ape Enforcement Task Force.

I first put the proposal for such a Task Force to the CITES Animals Committee meeting in Geneva in May. Together with KWS and Bornfree Foundation, we persuaded the Committee to set up a working group to brainstorm ideas on how CITES could contribute to great ape conservation. I briefed the group, including the CITES Secretariat Enforcement Officer John Sellar, on the broad facts of the Sweetwaters case - withholding names for enforcement reasons - and suggested that a Great Ape Enforcement Task Force could focus initially on closing smuggling routes out of Nigeria and Central Africa. The group backed the idea; its Chair, Dr Richard Bagine from KWS took it to the full Committee, which in turn agreed to forward it to the CITES Standing Committee due to meet in June. So the next month saw me trekking back to Geneva. There I addressed the Standing Committee on smuggling between Nigeria and Egypt and, working once again with KWS and Bornfree, lobbied members to support a Great Ape Enforcement Task Force. The Committee endorsed the proposal unanimously and recommended trade sanctions against Nigeria for failing to enforce CITES.

The next step was to have the Task Force endorsed by GRASP, the UN's Great Ape Survival Project, at its ministerial meeting on great apes in Kinshasa in September. To start the ball rolling I travelled to Washington DC to lobby at a preliminary meeting. The idea was well received both by GRASP and US government officials. Since our CITES partner, IFAW, was sending an experienced representative to Kinshasa and he agreed to advocate for a Great Ape Enforcement Task Force, DSWF decided not to attend. IFAW adeptly took the ball forward and manoeuvred it into the goal, accomplishing written endorsement of the Task Force by ministers.

With political support achieved it now remains to make the Task Force a reality. September 2006 has been set as a tentative date for the first meeting; a shortage of staff and funding in the CITES Secretariat preclude an earlier date. Fund raising is the next big challenge. But if we continue in the same spirit of cooperation evident to date I'm optimistic that we can find the funds needed and strike back at the poachers and smugglers who have been operating with impunity.

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