Countries fail to protect endangered species from illegal trade

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Posted on 23 July 2012

© WWF / Martin Harvey

Geneva – Poor performances by key countries are threatening the survival of wild rhinos, tigers and elephants, a new WWF report has found. The analysis, released as governments gather in Geneva this week to discuss a range of issues related to wildlife trade, rates 23 of the top African and Asian nations facing high levels of poaching and trafficking in ivory, rhino horn and tiger parts.

The report, entitled Wildlife Crime Scorecard: Assessing Compliance with and Enforcement of CITES Commitments for Tigers, Rhinos and Elephants, examines of the many countries considered as range, transit or consumer countries for these species. It gives countries scores of green, yellow or red for each animal, as applicable, as an indicator of recent progress. WWF has found that illegal trade persists in virtually all 23 countries reviewed, but the scorecard seeks to differentiate between countries where it is actively being countered from those where current efforts are entirely inadequate.

Asian demand drives poaching

Among the worst performers is Viet Nam that received two red scores, for rhinos and tigers. Viet Nam is identified in the report as the top destination country for rhino horn, which has fuelled a poaching crisis in South Africa. A record 448 South African rhinos were killed for their horns in 2011 and the country, which itself receives a yellow for rhinos, has lost an additional 262 already this year. According to the report, many Vietnamese have been arrested or implicated in South Africa for acquiring rhino horns illegally, including Vietnamese diplomats.

“It is time for Viet Nam to face the fact that its illegal consumption of rhino horn is driving the widespread poaching of endangered rhinos in Africa, and that it must crack down on the illegal rhino horn trade. Viet Nam should review its penalties and immediately curtail retail markets, including Internet advertising for horn,” said Elisabeth McLellan, Global Species Programme manager at WWF.

Inadequate enforcement of domestic ivory markets in China is also highlighted in the report. China receives a yellow score for elephants indicating a failure by the country to effectively police its legal ivory markets. “The ongoing flow of large volumes of illegal ivory to China suggests that such ivory may be moving into legal ivory trade channels,” the report says.

China is urged to dramatically and consistently improve its enforcement controls for ivory and to communicate to Chinese nationals in Africa that anyone caught importing illegal wildlife products into China would be prosecuted, and if convicted, severely penalized.

Poaching crisis across Africa

© Panjit Tansom / TRAFFIC

Tens of thousands of African elephants are being killed by poachers each year for their tusks and China and Thailand are top destinations for illegal African ivory. Thailand receives a red score for its failure to close a legal loophole that makes it easy for retailers to sell ivory from poached African elephants.

“In Thailand, illegal African ivory is being openly sold in up-scale boutiques that cater to unsuspecting tourists. Governments will be taking up this troubling issue this week. So far Thailand has not responded adequately to concerns and, with the amount of ivory of uncertain origin in circulation, the only credible option at this stage is a ban on ivory trade,” McLellan said.

Elephant poaching is at crisis levels in Central Africa, where rhinos were likely poached to extinction. Last year witnessed the elephant highest poaching rates across the continent since records began. Early this year hundreds of elephants were killed in a single incident in a Cameroon national park. “Given the escalation of elephant poaching in Africa and the increased levels of organized crime involved in the trade, it is clear that the situation is now critical,” the report found.

Wildlife crime not only poses a threat to animals, but is a risk to people, territorial integrity, stability and rule of law. Regional cooperation is needed in Central Africa to counter the flows of illegal ivory and arms spilling across borders. WWF commends Central African governments for signing a regional wildlife law enforcement plan and urges them to make its implementation a top priority, allocating resources to the plan and improving the efficacy of prosecutions for those implicated in poaching or illegal trade.

© WWF/Bouba N’Djida Safari Lodge

“Although most Central African countries receive yellow or red scores for elephants, there are some encouraging signals. Last month Gabon burned its entire ivory stockpile, to ensure that no tusks would leak into illegal trade, and President Ali Bongo committed to both increasing protections in the country’s parks and to ensuring that those committing wildlife crimes are prosecuted and sent to prison,” said WWF Global Species Programme manager Wendy Elliott.

Best performers

Other bright spots from the report are green scores for India and Nepal for each of the three species groups. In 2011, Nepal celebrated a year without any rhino poaching incidents, which was largely attributed to improvements to anti-poaching and other law enforcement efforts.

WWF’s Wildlife Crime Scorecard is being released as member countries of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) hold their annual Standing Committee meeting. The conservation organization is set to launch a global campaign to fight illegal wildlife trade, which is putting the future of elephants, rhinos and tigers at risk. Learn more at panda.org/wildlifecrime.

Clearing Laos of U.S. bombs should be a high priority

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By Del. Eni F.H. Faleomavaega (D-American Samoa) – 07/13/12 10:38 AM ET

On July 11, 2012, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton landed in Vientiane, the capital of Lao PDR, for a brief visit on her way to meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Cambodia. The last time an active U.S. Secretary of State stepped foot in the country was in 1955, during the Cold War. Nine years later, in 1964, the U.S. began a Secret War in Laos, unauthorized by Congress, to stem communist ground incursions and to interdict traffic along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. Between 1964 and 1973, the U.S. dropped the equivalent of one planeload of bombs every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, on a country the size of Minnesota. One ton of bombs was dropped for every man, woman, and child in Laos at the time, making it the most heavily bombed country per capita in history.

Secretary Clinton’s visit marks the beginning of a new era in U.S.-Lao relations — one focused not on this violent past, but on a bright future. As a Vietnam War veteran who served at the height of the Tet Offensive, I take a personal interest in seeing Laos heal from the wounds of the war. However, I also know that the ghost of the terrible bombings is still very present in the daily lives of ordinary Lao villagers. Up to a third of the bombs dropped over 40 years ago did not explode on impact. An estimated 800,000 volatile, decaying cluster bombs continue to contaminate fields, forests, and villages across Laos. Farmers must risk deadly explosions every day to plant food for their families, and dozens of children every year are killed or maimed by playing or tampering with the small, toy-like cluster bombs. Before we can truly turn our eyes to the future of U.S.-Lao relations, we must resolve this destructive legacy of the past.

In 2010, I returned to Southeast Asia not as a soldier, but as Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the Global Environment and the leader of a Congressional delegation to Southeast Asia.  My colleagues and I learned first-hand the impact that these bombs continue to have on the lives of innocent people — people who are not and never were at war with us. When I returned, deeply affected by the suffering I had seen, I held the first-ever Congressional hearing on the Lao UXO crisis. Today I join the U.S. non-profit Legacies of War in calling on Secretary Clinton to make clearing Laos of U.S. bombs a high priority in the region by committing at least $10 million per year over the next decade, or more. The scale of contamination is vast, and Laos will never be able to reach its full potential without clearing land for agriculture and development. But this is a man-made problem with a man-made solution — with her visit, Secretary Clinton has the opportunity to summon the necessary political will to help Laos end this legacy of war and allow a new legacy of peace to begin. Not only does it make sense to help build strong relations with an important ASEAN ally — it is also the right thing to do.

The Honorable Eni F.H. Faleomavaega is the former Chairman and current Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific.

Clinton vows more help to clear Laos of Vietnam War bombs

Touring region to raise U.S. influence

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By Bradley Klapper  -  Associated Press

Thursday, July 12, 2012

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton place flowers at a statue after during a tour of the Ho Phra Keo Temple, in Vientiane, Laos, Wednesday, July 11, 2012. (AP Photo/Brendon Smialowski, Pool)

VIENTIANE, LAOS — Decades after the U.S. gave Laos a horrific distinction as the world’s most heavily bombed nation per person, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has pledged to help get rid of millions of unexploded bombs that still pockmark the impoverished country – and still kill.

The U.S. dropped more than 2 million tons of bombs on the North Vietnamese ally during its “secret war” between 1964 and 1973 – about a ton of ordnance for each Laotian man, woman and child. That exceeded the amount dropped on Germany and Japan together in World War II.

Four decades later, American weapons are still claiming lives.

When the war ended, about a third of approximately 270 million cluster bombs dropped on Laos had failed to detonate. More than 20,000 people have been killed by ordnance in Laos since then, according to Laos‘ government, and agricultural development has been stymied.

Mrs. Clinton, gauging whether the nation can evolve into a new foothold of American influence in Asia, met Wednesday with the prime minister and foreign minister, part of a weeklong diplomatic tour of Southeast Asia. The goal is to bolster America’s standing in some of the fastest-growing markets of the world and counter China’s expanding economic, diplomatic and military dominance of the region.

Mrs. Clinton said she and the Laotian leaders “traced the arc of our relationship from addressing the tragic legacies of the past to finding a way to being partners of the future.”

Laos is the latest test case of the Obama administration’s efforts to “pivot” U.S. foreign policy away from the long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The efforts follow a long period of estrangement between Washington and a former Cold War-era foe and come as U.S. relations also warm with countries such as Myanmar and Vietnam.

Ordnance cleanup

In her meetings, Mrs. Clinton discussed environmental concerns over a proposed dam on the Mekong River as well as investment opportunities and the joint efforts to clean up the unexploded bombs dropped across Laos over what once was called the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Greater U.S. support for programs in those fields will be included in a multimillion-dollar initiative for Southeast Asia to be announced this week.

Mrs. Clinton visited a Buddhist temple and a U.S.-funded prosthetic center for victims of American munitions. There she met a man named Phongsavath Souliyalat, who told her how he had lost both his hands and his eyesight from a cluster bomb on his 16th birthday, four years ago.

“We have to do more,” Mrs. Clinton told him. “That’s one of the reasons I wanted to come here today, so that we can tell more people about the work that we should be doing together.”

Although the U.S. bombed Laos to loosen its alliance with the North Vietnamese, the current Vietnamese government focuses its efforts in Laos on recovering its own dead more than cleaning up unexploded bombs.

Cleanup has been excruciatingly slow. Washington-based Legacies of War says only 1 percent of contaminated lands have been cleared, and it has called on Washington to provide far greater assistance.

The State Department has provided $47 million since 1997, though a larger effort could make Laos “bomb-free in our lifetimes,” said Rep. Michael M. Honda, California Democrat, on Wednesday.

“Let us mend the wounds of the past together so that Laos can begin a new legacy of peace,” he said.

The U.S. is spending $9 million this year on cleanup operations for unexploded ordnance in Laos and is likely to offer more in the coming days.

It is part of a larger Obama administration effort to reorient the direction of U.S. diplomacy and commercial policy as the world’s most populous continent becomes the center of the global economy over the next century. It also is a reaction to China’s expanding influence.

‘Domino theory’

The last U.S. secretary of state to visit Laos was John Foster Dulles in 1955. His plane landed after a water buffalo was cleared from the tarmac.

At that time, the mountainous, sparsely populated nation was near the center of U.S. foreign policy. On leaving office, President Eisenhower warned his successor, John F. Kennedy, that if Laos fell to the communists, all Southeast Asia could be lost as well.

While Vietnam ended up the focal point of America’s “domino theory” foreign policy, Laos was drawn deeply into the conflict as the U.S. helped support its anti-communist forces and bombed North Vietnamese supply lines and bases.

Landlocked and impoverished, Laos offers fewer resources than its far larger neighbors and has lagged in Asia’s economic boom. It remains one of the poorest countries in Asia even as it hopes to boost its development with accession soon to the World Trade Organization.

In recent years, China has stepped up as Laos‘ principal source of assistance, with loans and grants of up to $350 million over the past two decades.

But like many others in its region, Laos‘ government is wary of Beijing’s intentions. And it has kept an envious eye on neighboring Vietnam’s 40 percent surge in commercial trade with the United States over the past two years as well as the sudden rapprochement between the U.S. and nearby Myanmar.

Persistent human rights issues stand in the way of closer relations with Washington. The U.S. remains concerned about the plight of the ethnic Hmong minority, most of whom fled the country after fighting for a U.S.-backed guerrilla army during the Vietnam War. Nearly 250,000 resettled in the United States. The U.S. has pressed Laos to respect the rights of returnees from neighboring countries.

Washington also has been seeking greater cooperation from Laos on the search for U.S. soldiers missing in action since the Vietnam War. More than 300 Americans remain unaccounted for in Laos.

Hillary Clinton pays historic visit to communist Laos

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source http://www.mercurynews.com/nation-world/ci_21051906

By Bradley Klapper

Associated Press

Posted:   07/11/2012 09:22:36 AM PDT

Updated:   07/11/2012 09:22:37 AM PDT

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton watches a map which displays locations of bombing sites during Vietnam War, on her tour at the Cooperative Orthotic Prosthetic Enterprise Center (COPE), in Vientiane, Laos, Wednesday, July 11, 2012. COPE provides free prosthetics to those who need them including the victims of blasts of unexploded Vietnam War era ordnance, (AP Photo/Brendon Smialowski, Pool) ( Brendan Smialowski )

VIENTIANE, Laos — Hillary Rodham Clinton became the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Laos in more than five decades, gauging whether a place the United States pummeled with bombs during the Vietnam War could evolve into a new foothold of American influence in Asia.

Clinton met with the communist government’s prime minister and foreign minister in the capital of Vientiane on Wednesday, part of a weeklong diplomatic tour of Southeast Asia. The goal is to bolster America’s standing in some of the fastest growing markets of the world, and counter China’s expanding economic, diplomatic and military dominance of the region.

Thirty-seven years since the end of America’s long war in Indochina, Laos is the latest test case of the Obama administration’s efforts to “pivot” U.S. foreign policy away from the long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It follows a long period of estrangement between Washington and a once hostile Cold War-era foe, and comes as U.S. relations warm with countries such as Myanmar and Vietnam.

In her meetings, Clinton discussed environmental concerns over a proposed dam on the Mekong River, investment opportunities and joint efforts to clean up the tens of millions of unexploded bombs the U.S. dropped on Laos during the Vietnam War. Greater American support programs in these fields will be included in a multimillion-dollar initiative for Southeast Asia to be announced later this week.

After the meetings, she said they “traced the arc of our relationship from addressing the tragic legacies of the past to finding a way to being partners of the future.”

Clinton also visited a Buddhist temple and a U.S.-funded prosthetic center for victims of American munitions.

At the prosthetic center, she met a man named Phongsavath Souliyalat, who told her how he had lost both his hands and his eyesight from a cluster bomb on his 16th birthday.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton place flowers at a statue after during a tour of the Ho Phra Keo Temple, in Vientiane, Laos, Wednesday, July 11, 2012. (AP Photo/Brendon Smialowski, Pool) ( Brendan Smialowski )

“We have to do more,” Clinton told him. “That’s one of the reasons I wanted to come here today, so that we can tell more people about the work that we should be doing together.”

The last U.S. secretary of state to visit Laos was John Foster Dulles in 1955. His plane landed after being forced to circle overhead while a water buffalo was cleared from the tarmac.

At that time, the mountainous, sparsely populated nation was at the center of U.S. foreign policy. On leaving office, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned his successor, John F. Kennedy, that if Laos fell to the communists, all Southeast Asia could be lost as well.

While Vietnam ended up the focal point of America’s “domino theory” foreign policy, Laos was drawn deeply into the conflict as the U.S. funded its anti-communist forces and bombed North Vietnamese supply lines and bases.

The U.S. dropped more than 2 million tons of bombs on the impoverished country during its “secret war” between 1964 and 1973 — about a ton of ordnance for each Laotian man, woman and child. That exceeded the amount dropped on Germany and Japan together in World War II, making Laos the most heavily bombed nation per person in history.

Four decades later, American weapons are still claiming lives. When the war ended, about a third of some 270 million cluster bombs dropped on Laos had failed to detonate, leaving the country awash in unexploded munitions. More than 20,000 people have been killed by ordnance in postwar Laos, according to its government, and contamination throughout the country is a major barrier to agricultural development.

Cleanup has been excruciatingly slow. The Washington-based Legacies of War says only 1 percent of contaminated lands have been cleared and has called on Washington to provide far greater assistance. The State Department has provided $47 million since 1997, though a larger effort could make Laos “bomb-free in our lifetimes,” California Rep. Mike Honda argued.

“Let us mend the wounds of the past together so that Laos can begin a new legacy of peace,” said Honda, who is Japanese-American.

The U.S. is spending $9 million this year on cleanup operations for unexploded ordnance in Laos, but is likely to offer more in the coming days.

It is part of a larger Obama administration effort to reorient the direction of U.S. diplomacy and commercial policy as the world’s most populous continent becomes the center of the global economy over the next century. It is also a reaction to China’s expanding influence.

Despite America’s difficult history in the region, nations in Beijing’s backyard are welcoming the greater engagement — and the promise of billions of dollars more in American investment. The change has been sudden, with some longtime U.S. foes now seeking a relationship that could serve at least as a counterweight to China’s regional hegemony.

Myanmar, also known as Burma, has made significant strides toward reform and democracy after decades as an international pariah, when it was universally scorned for its atrocious labor rights record and its long repression of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s pro-democracy movement. The Obama administration is expected to ease investment restrictions in the country this week.

Vietnam, threatened by Beijing’s claims to the resource-rich South China Sea, has dramatically deepened diplomatic and commercial ties with the United States, with their two-country trade now exceeding $22 billion a year — from nothing two decades ago. Clinton on Tuesday made her third trip to the fast-growing country, meeting with senior communist officials to prod them into greater respect for free expression and labor rights.

Landlocked and impoverished Laos offers fewer resources than its far larger neighbors and has lagged in Asia’s economic boom. It remains one of the poorest countries in Asia, even as it hopes to kick-start its development with accession soon to the World Trade Organization.

In recent years, China has stepped up as Laos’ principal source of assistance, with loans and grants of up to $350 million over the last two decades. But like many others in its region, Laos’ government is wary of Beijing’s intentions. And it has kept an envious eye on neighboring Vietnam’s 40 percent surge in commercial trade with the United States over the last two years, as well as the sudden rapprochement between the U.S. and nearby Myanmar.

Persistent human rights issues stand in the way of closer relations with Washington. The U.S. remains concerned about the plight of the ethnic Hmong minority, most of whom fled the country after fighting for a U.S.-backed guerilla army during the Vietnam War. Nearly 250,000 resettled in the United States. The U.S. has pressed Laos to respect the rights of returnees from neighboring countries.

Washington also has been seeking greater cooperation from Laos on the search for U.S. soldiers missing in action since the Vietnam War. More than 300 Americans remain unaccounted for in Laos.

And it is pressing the government to hold off on a proposed $3.5 billion dam project across the Mekong River. The dam would be the first across the river’s mainstream and has sparked a barrage of opposition from neighboring countries and environmental groups, which warn that tens of millions of livelihoods could be at stake.

The project is currently on hold and Washington hopes to stall it further with the promise of funds for new environmental studies.

Lao Dams: Near A Dam, But No Power

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source:  http://www.rfa.org/english/news/laos/nam-theun-2-06142012192729.html

2012-06-14

The reservoir of the Nam Theun 2 reservoir in a handout photo from the power company, Oct. 23, 2010.

Some of the thousands who made way for Laos’s Nam Theun 2 hydropower project have no electricity.

Villagers living near Laos’s largest hydro-electric dam and who were resettled to make room for it are languishing without a power supply of their own.

The Nam Theun 2, a 1,070-megawatt dam on a tributary of the Mekong River in Khammouane province, has been producing electricity for Laos’s power grid since March 2010.

But with over 90 percent of the dam’s electricity sold to neighboring Thailand, some of the thousands who moved to make way for the project are living nearby without power.

One man who was relocated from the Nakai Plateau to Nhommalat district said his new village, Ban Sang, lacks electricity and water supply.

“What has happened to us from the Nam Theun 2 is that we are now living near the dam but we have no electricity, no clean water,” he said, speaking to RFA on condition of anonymity.

The man is one of 6,300 villagers, according to government statistics, who were relocated since 2005 to make room for the dam, which diverts water from the Nam Theun River to the Xe Bang Fai River.

He appealed to local authorities to give the village access to water and electricity.

“The reservoir’s water level is above our heads, but we have no water to use in our daily lives,” he said.

He added that sometimes Ban Sang residents’ homes are flooded because they are not given an announcement before the dam’s gates are opened to release excess water.

Everyday life is different for the villagers since relocation because they could not bring their livestock with them and had to find new land to farm in the new village, he said.

‘Battery’ of Southeast Asia

The U.S. $1.25 billion hydropower project was financed by international institutions including the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank and seen as a way for Laos to generate revenue and reduce reliance on foreign aid.

But green groups including International Rivers said the dam could affect the livelihoods of not only those relocated, but also some 100,000 people who had relied on fisheries downstream on the Xe Bang Fai River.

With plans to export electricity to Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and China, Laos has said it hopes to become the “battery” of Southeast Asia, as only around half of its own population has access to electricity.

As of the beginning of this year, Laos had 14 operational hydropower dams, 10 under construction, and 56 proposed or in planning stages, according to an online government report.

Among these is the controversial Xayaburi dam, which would be the first on the mainstream Lower Mekong. Green groups say the dam could have a major impact on the regional environment and threaten Southeast Asia’s food security.

Reported by Nontarat Phaicharoen for RFA’s Lao service. Translated by Somnet Inthapannha. Written in English by Rachel Vandenbrink.

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