Octopus Overlords

China has announced a ban on all ivory trade and processing activities by the end of 2017.
...
The move follows a resolution at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) in South Africa in October.

China has the biggest ivory market in the world - some estimates suggest 70% of the world's trade ends up there.
...
The commercial processing and sale of ivory will stop by 31 March, and all registered traders will then be phased out, bringing a full halt to the market by the end of the year.
...
While the international market in ivory has been closed since 1989, legal domestic markets have continued in many countries around the world.

A surge in the killing of elephants over the past seven years has seen populations across Africa shrink by a third, according to the recently published Great Elephant Census.

China had backed the Cites resolution in October, surprising participants with the strength of its support for a ban.

Some delegates said Beijing had wanted an even stronger resolution.

hepcat wrote:Can I get a translator in here? Someone who speaks nonsense, preferably?

hepcat wrote:Can I get a translator in here? Someone who speaks nonsense, preferably?

em2nought wrote:Luckily the Chinese are with the program. I've seen several democrats calling for killing Elephants lately. The head Pachyderm no less. I guess you could safety pin them to death?

Rip wrote:

hepcat wrote:Can I get a translator in here? Someone who speaks nonsense, preferably?

Gladly, killing elephants=killing Republicans.


head Pachyderm=Trump

The safety pin remark is anybody's guess.

hepcat wrote:

Rip wrote:

hepcat wrote:Can I get a translator in here? Someone who speaks nonsense, preferably?

Gladly, killing elephants=killing Republicans.


head Pachyderm=Trump

The safety pin remark is anybody's guess.

aahh, daddy Rip speaks Li'l Rip. That's sweet.

Rip wrote:The safety pin remark is anybody's guess.

In an attempt to show their solidarity, Trump opponents across the country last week started fastening safety pins to their clothes and posting selfies on social media. The gesture was supposed to signify that the wearer was a “safe” ally, ready to stand up for anyone who might be the target of abuse, whether verbal or physical.

But that’s not how some people have seen it. Just days after the impromptu campaign went viral, the decision to don safety pins has come under fire from critics — including several black and Hispanic writers — who lambasted it as a poor excuse for action and a self-indulgent way for white people to distance themselves from Trump voters.

“Let’s call these safety pins what they are: an empty gesture,” Demetria Lucas D’Oyley wrote in The Root. “These pins, not the wearing of them nor the pictures posted of folks wearing them, are not about safe spaces. They’re about not wanting to be perceived as a racist. Like, ‘I might be white, but I’m not like them, over there. I’m enlightened.’”

Rip wrote:

hepcat wrote:

Rip wrote:

hepcat wrote:Can I get a translator in here? Someone who speaks nonsense, preferably?

Gladly, killing elephants=killing Republicans.


head Pachyderm=Trump

The safety pin remark is anybody's guess.

aahh, daddy Rip speaks Li'l Rip. That's sweet.

Max Peck wrote:No need to guess

As of December 31, China’s legal, government-sanctioned ivory trade will come to a close. All of the country’s licensed ivory carving factories and retailers will be shuttered in accordance with a landmark 2015 announcement from Chinese President Xi Jinping and then U.S. President Barack Obama.

China and the U.S. both agreed to “near-complete” ivory bans, which prohibit the buying and selling of all but a limited number of antiques and a few other items. The U.S.’s ivory ban went into effect in June 2016. China’s goes into effect December 31, 2017.

China is widely believed to be the world’s largest consumer of ivory, both legal and illegal, and it plays a major role in the yearly slaughter of some 30,000 African elephants by poachers. Ivory is in demand for intricate carvings, trinkets, chopsticks, and other items.
...
An international ivory trade ban went into effect in 1990, but China continued to allow—and even promote—ivory sales within its borders. Its legal ivory supply came primarily from a one-time sale of ivory from a handful of African countries in 2008. But this legal domestic market has provided the opportunity for traffickers to slip illegally obtained ivory into China’s legal supply. Many conservationists have said that this one-time legal sale helped drive a dramatic increase in elephant poaching.

An American conservationist regarded as the world’s foremost investigator into the illegal trade in ivory and rhino horn has been found stabbed to death in Kenya.

The body of Esmond Bradley Martin was found by his wife Chryssee at their home in Langata on the outskirts of Nairobi with at least one stab wound in his neck, police said.

Raising fears that politically connected wildlife mafias were seeking to eliminate campaigners exposing their networks, Mr Bradley Martin was the second conservationist investigating the ivory trade to meet a violent death in six months.

Last August, Prince William gave warning that campaigners investigating serious wildlife crime had become targets following the murder of Wayne Lotter, a South African conservationist whose work led to the arrest of Chinese ivory traffickers.
...
Like Mr Lotter, Mr Bradley Martin — who is understood to have briefed Prince William on several occasions — had been investigating the smuggling of ivory through Tanzanian and Kenyan ports to Southeast Asia, a trade that some conservationists say is supported by powerful politicians in the two countries.

He had recently returned from Burma as part of his investigations and was writing up his findings.

Kenyan police, however, said there was nothing so far to indicate a link between Mr Bradley Martin’s work and death.

One police officer involved in the investigation suggested that, after interviewing domestic staff at the house, a burglary gone wrong was his most plausible theory.
...
Although violent crime is common in Nairobi, the murder of foreigners is comparatively rare, particularly during the day.

Kenya’s police force has struggled to shake off a reputation of ineptitude and corruption. The list of unsolved murders, particularly of foreigners, is long, ranging from Julie Ward, the British tourist murdered in the Maasai Mara in 1988, to Tonio Trzebinski, a socialite artist killed in 2001.

In 2012, Alexander Monson, a young British aristocrat, died in unclear circumstances while in police custody.

Police investigations have often been ridiculed: Police initially claimed that Miss Ward had been killed by wild animals, despite her corpse having been burnt. Robert Ouko, the popular foreign minister, was found to have committed suicide by police, a feat that would have required him to break his leg twice, set himself on fire and then shoot himself in the back of the head.

Handing another win to the National Rifle Association, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service withdrew a ban related to importing elephant trophies from Africa. A March 1 memorandum, written in dense legalese, said the government will now allow hunters to receive permits on “a case-by-case basis” to bring tusks and other body parts back to this country.

This is notable because Trump chastised and then overruled his own political appointees at the department, led by Secretary Ryan Zinke, when they unveiled plans last November to lift restrictions put in place by Barack Obama. The president called the hunting of elephants for sport a “horror show.”

Just last month, Trump told Piers Morgan that what his team did last year was “terrible.”

“I didn’t want elephants killed and stuffed and have the tusks brought back,” he said.
...
The NRA has been aggressively challenging the 2014 ban on elephant trophy imports from Zimbabwe and Zambia in court, and the D.C. Circuit ruled in December that the Obama administration didn’t follow proper procedures related to soliciting public comments when implementing it.

The Trump administration cites this finding as the justification for its policy change. But The Hill notes that Fish and Wildlife is simultaneously withdrawing other findings related to trophy hunting that stretch back to 1995. So that spin doesn’t necessarily pass the smell test.
...
In an apparent effort to minimize press coverage, the Trump team at Interior initially tried to push through the rule change last November during the week before the Thanksgiving holiday.

But they didn’t count on blowback from the right. Many conservative elites are against the senseless and barbaric murder of elephants, the symbol of the Republican Party, and they successfully used their platforms to get the president to overrule his subordinates and both of his sons. Most prominent among them were radio host Michael Savage and Fox News host Laura Ingraham.
...
Speaking for the first time about the Interior memo, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders insisted at her Wednesday afternoon briefing that the president’s views have not changed since November. She cited the litigation as the reason for the change and then referred specific questions about how the relaxed rules will work to the department. “The president has been clear what his position is, and that has not changed,” she said. Asked if he thinks there should be a permanent ban on imports of trophies, she ducked and repeated herself. “President Trump's position on trophy hunting remains the same,” Sanders said.
...
Bottom line: This is the latest illustration of the imperative with this administration to watch what officials actually do, not just what Trump says or tweets. The case-by-case standard means that officials could grant no permits or approve all requests. Officials at Fish and Wildlife say that applicants will need to meet conservation and sustainability requirements. (Advocates of big-game hunting argue that revenue from trophy permits helps preserve habitats, but many experts disagree.)

Botswana has scrapped its ban on hunting, citing an increase in conflicts between elephants and humans during the five years the rule was in place.

The southern African nation, which is home to 130,000 elephants -- or around one third of the continent's population -- imposed the ban in 2014 to deter poaching.

But while the elephants are popular with wildlife-loving tourists, locals have complained that they damage crops and affect livelihoods.
...
Earlier this year, ministers in Botswana recommended lifting the ban and allowing the canning of elephant meat for pet food.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Thu May 23, 2019 12:25 pm Botswana

Botswana has scrapped its ban on hunting, citing an increase in conflicts between elephants and humans during the five years the rule was in place.

The southern African nation, which is home to 130,000 elephants -- or around one third of the continent's population -- imposed the ban in 2014 to deter poaching.

But while the elephants are popular with wildlife-loving tourists, locals have complained that they damage crops and affect livelihoods.
...
Earlier this year, ministers in Botswana recommended lifting the ban and allowing the canning of elephant meat for pet food.