UN report confirms corruption is biggest threat
to ivory, as wildlife officials arrested across Africa
and Asia
Cameroonian ecoguard Mpaé
Désiré, who in 2015 was accused of beating Baka and in
2016 was arrested for involvement in the illegal
wildlife trade.
© Facebook A
new
UN report has confirmed that corrupt officials are
at the heart of wildlife crime in many parts of the
world, rather than terrorist
groups or tribal peoples who hunt to feed their
families.
The
reports’ findings have coincided with a wave of arrests
of wildlife officials across Africa and Asia, raising
concerns of a global “epidemic” of poaching and
corruption among armed wildlife guards who are supposed
to be protecting endangered species.
Recent
conservation corruption arrests include:
-A
wildlife guard in Cameroon, Mpaé Désiré, and a local
police chief who were arrested on suspicion of
involvement in the illegal ivory trade on the ancestral
land of the Baka “Pygmies" and other rainforest
tribes. Mr Mpaé has been accused
by Baka of beating up tribespeople and torching one
of their forest camps after accusing them of
poaching.
The
World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has
been funding wildlife guards in this part of Cameroon
since at least 2000, despite
reports of guards arresting, beating and torturing
tribal hunters.
One
Baka man told Survival in 2013: “Ecoguards used to open
tins of sardines and leave them as bait to attract
leopards, so they could hunt them for their skins."
Another
said: “The ecoguards don’t want anyone in the forest at
all so that no one hears the gunshots as they
poach.”
Elsewhere:
-
Four park employees in India have been arrested for
involvement in poaching endangered one-horned rhinos in
the
notorious Kaziranga reserve, where wildlife guards
are encouraged to shoot on sight anyone they suspect of
poaching. 62
people have been killed there in just nine
years.
-
A forest officer has been arrested near Kaziranga after
police
found a tiger skin and ivory in his house.
-
In the Pench
tiger reserve in central India, a guard, named in
reports as Vipin Varmiya, has been arrested for killing
a tiger and her two cubs.
A tiger was allegedly killed
by a park guard in Pench tiger reserve, India
© Survival A
recent
Brookings Institution Report confirmed that the big
conservation organizations are failing to tackle the
true poachers – criminals conspiring with corrupt
officials. The link between corruption and wildlife
crime has also been reported in Tanzania, South Africa,
Kenya, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Indonesia.
The
involvement of armed guards in poaching, in countries
where militarized
conservation tactics are employed, raises questions
over the advisability of using violence and intimidation
to protect flora and fauna. In many parts of the world,
armed conservation has led to violence
against local tribal peoples, including in Cameroon,
and in India where summary
execution in the name of conservation is in danger
of becoming more widespread.
In
February 2016, Survival
filed an OECD complaint
against the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) for its involvement in funding
repressive and often violent conservation projects in
southeast Cameroon, rather than tackling the real
poachers. Persecuting the environment’s
best allies in place of real action to tackle these
systemic problems is harming conservation.
Survival’s
Director Stephen Corry said: “Conservation’s response to
poaching has been to accuse local tribespeople when they
hunt to feed their families, to support the use of
shoot-to-kill policies and to blame terrorists. None of
it works; it’s harming conservation. The true poachers
are the criminals, including ecoguards, who conspire
with corrupt officials. As the big conservation
organizations partner with industry and tourism, they’re
harming the environment’s best allies, the tribal
peoples who have been dependent on and managed their
environments for millennia. Tribespeople should be at
the forefront of the environmental movement, they know
who the poachers actually are, they can protect their
land from logging, they protect biodiversity, and are
better at looking after their environment than anyone
else.”
Note:
Latest reports indicate Mr Mpaé has been released from
custody and is awaiting trial.
“Pygmy”
is an umbrella term commonly used to refer to the
hunter-gatherer peoples of the Congo Basin and elsewhere
in Central Africa. The word is considered pejorative and
avoided by some tribespeople, but used by others as a
convenient and easily recognized way of describing
themselves.
Read
this online: http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/11312
Guarani leader and teacher dies
Leia Aquino, speaking to
Survival a few years before her death in 2016
© Survival Survival
is sad to announce the sudden death of Leia Aquino, Guarani
Kaiowá activist, spokesperson and teacher. She died
of a brain hemorrhage in hospital on June 3rd.
Determined
and thoughtful, Leia was at the forefront of the Guarani
Kaiowá’s struggle for land rights and witnessed some of
the bitterest
conflicts between her community and the ranchers
occupying their land, known as Nanderu Marangatu,
where several Guarani leaders have been killed by
ranchers.
Watch:
Leia talking about the gunmen who constantly threaten
the Guarani.
Although
Nanderu Marangatu was formally recognized as a Guarani
territory in 2005, farmers continue to occupy most of
the land. The Guarani are only able to live on a
fraction of what is rightfully theirs.
Before
they carried out the occupations, the Guarani were
living on a tiny patch of land where malnutrition
was rife amongst young children.
Guarani from Leia's
community gather for a protest ritual on their ancestral
land.
© Egon Dionisio
Heck/Survival Survival
invited Leia and another Guarani leader, Marcos
Veron to Europe in 2000 for the launch
of the book “Disinherited,” about the Indians of
Brazil.
During
the trip Leia moved many audiences including school
children when she talked about the Guarani’s desperate
situation: “When I think about my people, I think about
freedom, because we are imprisoned. We are not a free
people, and this is because we have no land.
“When
we have land, we have freedom, and more than that we
have happiness. Looking at the faces of the people, you
can see only sadness and worry, because they haven’t got
what they need to live. We want to plant, but we have no
land to plant, but this land is ours, it belongs to
us.”
Likewise,
she was moved by young peoples’ interest and told a
group of Italian school children: “Our situation is very
difficult but we know that you love us and want to hear
about our situation. This was a great surprise to me
when they told there was a school that wanted to help
change the lives of the Guarani Kaiowá.”
Leia
was also a highly regarded teacher of Guarani school
children of Nanderu Marangatu. She attached great
importance to teaching in the Guarani language in order
to encourage younger Guarani to take pride in their
people’s culture.
The
small school was closed by the authorities in 1999 in
retaliation for Leia’s participation in peaceful land
rights protests. However, she successfully lobbied for
it to be reopened and it subsequently grew in size.
Leia
was buried in one of the areas of Nanderu Marangatu
which the Guarani reoccupied last year. She leaves her
husband – a community health worker – and three
children. Leia will be missed by many, but her legacy
will live on.
Read
this online: http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/11316
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