By Emmanuel Koro
Johannesburg - The secretary general of the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES), Australia-born John Scanlon, has announced that he will be resigning in April 2018.
Pro-sustainable use environmentalists worldwide, including CITES former secretary general Eugene Lapointe, have greeted the news of Scanlon’s resignation with a call for the appointment of a well-qualified African, as new CITES secretary general. Historical records of CITES personnel show that no one from the African continent has ever been appointed as secretary general.
Since the Convention came into force 43 years ago in 1975, Europeans, a Canadian and an Australian have monopolised the leadership at CITES. Yet most of its work has focused on endangered fauna and flora in Africa and Asia. Therefore, according to Lapointe, “Scanlon’s resignation provides the ideal moment to correct this historical imbalance which has provoked increasing conflict over the past few years.”
Announcing his decision in a CITES press statement released on 7 February 2018, Scanlon said:
“After serving for eight years as secretary-general of the CITES Secretariat (and three years with the UN Environment Programme in Nairobi prior to that) I will soon be completing my mandate with the Convention and taking up my next career challenge.”
“We have made extraordinary strides in the fight against illegal wildlife trade, including through the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime, and we are seeing tangible results from our collective efforts. Amongst many other successes, one can name; bringing more marine and timber species under CITES, new initiatives with the technology, tourism and transport sectors, reaching out to rural communities and the youth, and 3 March being declared as UN World Wildlife Day.”
Scanlon’s final day will be 6 April 2018.
How will the next secretary-general of CITES be appointed?
Scanlon said since mid-January 2018, he had been working very closely with the executive director of the UN Environment Programme, his chief of staff, and the chair of the CITES Standing Committee towards ensuring a smooth transition to a successor.
“We are working together to ensure the recruitment process is conducted expeditiously and in a way that respects UN personnel rules and the memorandum of understanding between the CITES Standing Committee and the executive director, which was agreed to and signed in 2011,” said the outgoing CITES Secretary General.
Scanlon leaves CITES at a time when the organisation is fast-losing credibility, as it is increasingly seen by pro-sustainable environmentalists worldwide as having been captured by animal rights groups who continue to sponsor votes to ban regulated trade in fauna and flora and their products, even where it is scientifically justified. The credibility-threatening development within CITES has earned the CITES Secretariat and its animal rights sponsors the bad image of exercising authority without responsibility.
CITES and animal rights groups are also busy shutting down ivory markets in China, Japan and the United States using the illogical ban-trade-in-wildlife products-to-stop-poaching approach.
These suspicious developments have continued to anger conservationists from Southern Africa and Asia, in particular. They are now exploring possibilities to pull out of CITES and start their own trading partnerships with countries that want to buy their ivory and rhino horn. An economist or anyone who honestly wants to tell the truth knows that to ban trade in any commodity does not stop but only increases its market demand.
The rhino horn trade ban and ivory trade ban are no exception.
Also, many people wonder how one can stop the Chinese, Americans and Japanese from their tradition of consuming and using ivory and rhino horn products. Can one honestly ban the consumption of burgers in America and everyone would listen? The future will confound those who are peddling such lies about ivory and rhino horn trade bans helping to stop poaching.
They always talk about animals and do not talk about socio-economic costs to African elephant and rhino range states and rural communities living side by side with these iconic species. No wonder why they are called animal rights because they do not balance the needs of people with those of wildlife.
For them and CITES, which they are increasingly capturing, animal rights are more important than human rights.
It is small wonder that calls for the appointment an African CITES secretary general have coincided with Scanlon’s announcement that he would step down in April 2018.
The thinking is that an African CITES secretary general might be sympathetic to the needs of the continent and its wildlife and [not] focus exclusively on wildlife needs as is increasingly happening in CITES presently.
The UN Environment Programme executive director, who is responsible for the recruitment process, will present three or more names to the UN Secretary-General, one of which must be a male and one must be a woman.
The executive director will be guided by the UN personnel rules, which will include advertising the position and establishing an assessment panel to interview short-listed candidates and recommend suitably qualified candidates to the UN Secretary-General. - Emmanuel Koro is an international award-winning environmental journalist who has written extensively on environment and development issues in Africa
Johannesburg - The secretary general of the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES), Australia-born John Scanlon, has announced that he will be resigning in April 2018.
Pro-sustainable use environmentalists worldwide, including CITES former secretary general Eugene Lapointe, have greeted the news of Scanlon’s resignation with a call for the appointment of a well-qualified African, as new CITES secretary general. Historical records of CITES personnel show that no one from the African continent has ever been appointed as secretary general.
Since the Convention came into force 43 years ago in 1975, Europeans, a Canadian and an Australian have monopolised the leadership at CITES. Yet most of its work has focused on endangered fauna and flora in Africa and Asia. Therefore, according to Lapointe, “Scanlon’s resignation provides the ideal moment to correct this historical imbalance which has provoked increasing conflict over the past few years.”
Announcing his decision in a CITES press statement released on 7 February 2018, Scanlon said:
“After serving for eight years as secretary-general of the CITES Secretariat (and three years with the UN Environment Programme in Nairobi prior to that) I will soon be completing my mandate with the Convention and taking up my next career challenge.”
“We have made extraordinary strides in the fight against illegal wildlife trade, including through the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime, and we are seeing tangible results from our collective efforts. Amongst many other successes, one can name; bringing more marine and timber species under CITES, new initiatives with the technology, tourism and transport sectors, reaching out to rural communities and the youth, and 3 March being declared as UN World Wildlife Day.”
Scanlon’s final day will be 6 April 2018.
How will the next secretary-general of CITES be appointed?
Scanlon said since mid-January 2018, he had been working very closely with the executive director of the UN Environment Programme, his chief of staff, and the chair of the CITES Standing Committee towards ensuring a smooth transition to a successor.
“We are working together to ensure the recruitment process is conducted expeditiously and in a way that respects UN personnel rules and the memorandum of understanding between the CITES Standing Committee and the executive director, which was agreed to and signed in 2011,” said the outgoing CITES Secretary General.
Scanlon leaves CITES at a time when the organisation is fast-losing credibility, as it is increasingly seen by pro-sustainable environmentalists worldwide as having been captured by animal rights groups who continue to sponsor votes to ban regulated trade in fauna and flora and their products, even where it is scientifically justified. The credibility-threatening development within CITES has earned the CITES Secretariat and its animal rights sponsors the bad image of exercising authority without responsibility.
CITES and animal rights groups are also busy shutting down ivory markets in China, Japan and the United States using the illogical ban-trade-in-wildlife products-to-stop-poaching approach.
These suspicious developments have continued to anger conservationists from Southern Africa and Asia, in particular. They are now exploring possibilities to pull out of CITES and start their own trading partnerships with countries that want to buy their ivory and rhino horn. An economist or anyone who honestly wants to tell the truth knows that to ban trade in any commodity does not stop but only increases its market demand.
The rhino horn trade ban and ivory trade ban are no exception.
Also, many people wonder how one can stop the Chinese, Americans and Japanese from their tradition of consuming and using ivory and rhino horn products. Can one honestly ban the consumption of burgers in America and everyone would listen? The future will confound those who are peddling such lies about ivory and rhino horn trade bans helping to stop poaching.
They always talk about animals and do not talk about socio-economic costs to African elephant and rhino range states and rural communities living side by side with these iconic species. No wonder why they are called animal rights because they do not balance the needs of people with those of wildlife.
For them and CITES, which they are increasingly capturing, animal rights are more important than human rights.
It is small wonder that calls for the appointment an African CITES secretary general have coincided with Scanlon’s announcement that he would step down in April 2018.
The thinking is that an African CITES secretary general might be sympathetic to the needs of the continent and its wildlife and [not] focus exclusively on wildlife needs as is increasingly happening in CITES presently.
The UN Environment Programme executive director, who is responsible for the recruitment process, will present three or more names to the UN Secretary-General, one of which must be a male and one must be a woman.
The executive director will be guided by the UN personnel rules, which will include advertising the position and establishing an assessment panel to interview short-listed candidates and recommend suitably qualified candidates to the UN Secretary-General. - Emmanuel Koro is an international award-winning environmental journalist who has written extensively on environment and development issues in Africa