:: TRAFFIC

Without doubt, Africa is home to one of the richest wildlife heritages in the world. Whilst supporting major wildlife-based industries, most nations have the unenviable task of balancing conservation and development needs in a particularly challenging political, economic and social environment. High levels of poverty, struggling economies, civil unrest, disease and natural calamities all present hard challenges to the successful monitoring of wildlife trade and USE on the continent. The exploitation of timber, fisheries and wildlife resources ranges from subsistence use, to the export of wildlife products for international markets.

TRAFFIC, the world’s largest wildlife trade monitoring network has evolved
from a single UK-based office to a network of some 20 offices around the
world, working to ensure that trade in wild plants and animals is not a
threat to the conservation of nature. The TRAFFIC regional programme for
East and Southern Africa covers 18 countries from Sudan to South Africa
through three offices - the regional office in Zimbabwe supported by
national offices in Tanzania and South Africa.

A great deal of TRAFFIC East/Southern Africa’s (TESA) work involves creating awareness and influencing policy decisions concerning important wildlife trade issues, building capacity within government institutions, enabling them to deal proactively with these issues, and working with other NGOs, research institutions and local communities to find solutions to pressing livelihood issues that impact negatively on species or ecosystems.

Current projects include work on elephants, rhinos, wild meat, the fishing
industry, medicinal plants and animals, timber trade, trophy hunting and law
enforcement and capacity building with government institutions.

TLLF funding is helping TESA in its work on the illegal trade in the endemic South African abalone species Haliotis midae. Illegal exploitation of abalone in South Africa is believed to be the most criminalized wildlife trade in Africa today. In fact, continued illegal harvesting and trade could result in the key abalone species being declared commercially extinct, which would also result in the closure of the legal fishery and the loss of many hundreds of jobs for the country's rural poor. Despite commendable efforts by the South African government to police the trade, the country needs further help. TESA has already assisted The South African Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism in the development of an implementation strategy for listing abalone on Appendix III of the International Convention on Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and has worked closely with DEAT's Marine and Coastal Management (MCM) branch in moving this process along. A CITES listing will require all international consignments of abalone to carry CITES documentation and will be a valuable compliance and monitoring tool. Once South Africa has completed the listing process, Customs and other border control authorities, both within South Africa as well as in transhipment States, will require the necessary skills and information to ensure that illegally harvested abalone is prevented from entering international trade. This would include awareness of the listing itself and the required CITES documentation for trade in CITES Appendix III listed species. TESA is poised to address this need with a comprehensive package of law enforcement assistance, capacity building and trade monitoring.

FreeMe website: www.traffic.org

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