ThinkProgress: Obama Launches Anti-Poaching Task Force
Posted by Enough Team on Jul 02, 2013
By Joseph Diebold, Guest Blogger on Jul 1, 2013 at 3:27 pm
(Credit: Shutterstock)
Near the end of his eight-day trip to Africa, President Obama
announced Monday a new task force aimed at combating wildlife
trafficking and the provision of $10 million in State Department aid
for training security to combat the issue.
Obama issued an executive order creating the task force, which will
bring together representatives from various government departments to
discuss best practices in reducing the amount of poaching world-wide.
He spoke about the issue at a joint press conference with the
president of Tanzania, Jakaya Kikwete: “Poaching and trafficking is
threatening Africa’s wildlife,” Obama said. “The entire world has a
stake in making sure that we preserve Africa’s beauty for future
generations.”
Aside from the conservation concerns, poaching is a major human rights
issue in the region. An Enough Project report from June found that
Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army has begun poaching ivory from
elephant tusks to fund the group’s activities, which include abducting
children and forcing them into sex slavery:
The Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, is now using elephant poaching
as a means to sustain itself. LRA leader Joseph Kony—wanted by the
International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against
humanity—has ordered his fighters to bring him elephant tusks.
Eyewitnesses report that the LRA trades tusks for much-needed
resources such as food, weapons and ammunition, and other supplies.
[...]
With prices at record-high levels, trading illegal ivory offers
the LRA another way to sustain itself in addition to its habitual
pillaging. Former senior fighters who defected from the group report
that the LRA trades ivory for arms, ammunition, and food. Former
captives said that they saw LRA groups in the DRC and the Central
African Republic, or CAR, trade ivory with unidentified people who
arrive in helicopters.
And the poaching problem is getting worse: The number of African
elephants killed illegally in 2012 was the highest in 20 years. The
hunting of rhinos for their keratin horns has also skyrocketed, even
as subspecies continue to die off as the western black rhino did in
2011. In February, Robert Hormats, the U.S. Under Secretary of State
for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, said ivory had
become a “conflict resource” and that the U.S. government viewed
poaching as a national security issue.
Organizations have turned to new technology in their efforts to combat
poaching. Backed by a $5 million grant from Google, the World Wildlife
Fund is beginning to utilize unmanned drones. But as the New York
Times reported last year, growing demand from China, record-high
prices for poached materials, and an increase in poaching by members
of security services assigned to fight the issue have only made the
flow of ivory more difficult to quench.
Joseph Diebold is an intern with ThinkProgress.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"South Sudan Info - The Kob" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
To view this discussion on the web visit
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/SouthSudanKob/CAJb14opm4wh-3aWDqmiGx5exzJC%2BNQUr9ZoAZOd7j1TDpk6_%2Bg%40mail.gmail.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
