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DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS #TipsForBarbara

#TipsForBarbara

The newly appointed Minister of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries Ms Barbara Creecy delivered the Department’s budget policy statement in the South African Parliament on the 11th July 2019.

Prior to her speech Minister Creecy asked South Africans for their input. Aptly named #TipsForBarbara South Africans were asked to send emails to DEAMedia@environment.gov.za

“The doors of the Department are open for all South Africans to get involved and share ideas in designing and implementing environmental policies that will shape the future of our country. Your inputs will help us attain the aspirations of the NDP for a climate resilient and lower carbon economy and society. “

PLEASE DOWNLOAD THE FULL CORRESPONDENCE

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RE-DETERMINATION OF THE 2019 LEOPARD TROPHY HUNTING QUOTA SOUTH AFRICA

WAPFSA-SUBMISSION-RE-DETERMINATION-OF-THE-2019-LEOPARD-TROPHY-HUNTING-QUOTADownload

SUBMISSION FROM MEMBERS OF THE WILDLIFE ANIMAL PROTECTION FORUM SOUTH AFRICA

TO

MINISTER BARBARA CREECY, THE DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS, FORESTRY AND FISHERIES

The Wildlife Animal Protection Forum South Africa recommends a zero quota and a cessation of the issuance of leopard trophy hunting based on the available science and deficiencies of the regulatory environmental and consultative process that are in place in the determination of population viability and status of the species.

READ FULL SUBMISSION BY DOWNLOADING THE DOCUMENT

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THE SOUTH AFRICAN LION BONE QUOTA

A SUBMISSION FROM TWENTY-FIVE NGO’S REPRESENTED BY THE WILDLIFE ANIMAL PROTECTION FORUM SOUTH AFRICA

TO

MINISTER BARBARA CREECY AND THE DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS, FORESTRY AND FISHERIES

Lion-Bone-Quota-Submission-to-Minister_DEFF-from-25-SA-NGOs_17052019Download

The establishment of a lion bone export quota cannot be done without examining and understanding the context and major problems with this so-called industry which are untenable, indefensible and unsustainable.

For more in-depth analysis and articulation of these issues please refer to Appendix 2 and Appendix 3 in The Extinction Business: South Africa’s Lion Bone Trade .

It is important to note that the issue of South Africa’s highly controversial lion bone trade is a national policy issue which has enormous local and global opposition. As a country, if we no longer choose to trade in big cat bones, it will have no impact on our commitments to CITES.

South Africa is under no obligation to CITES to trade in lion bones.

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THE EXTINCTION BUSINESS South Africa’s Lion Bone Trade

EXCERPTS FROM THE REPORT COMPILED BY THE EMS FOUNDATION AND THE BAN ANIMAL TRADING ORGANISATION

For more than a decade, South Africa has been actively supporting and growing the international trade in big cat bones, despite local and international outrage and condemnation from conservation and protection organisations, lion scientists and experts.

In 2017, South Africa’s Minister of Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa, controversially, and in the face of vociferous opposition and robust arguments against this trade, set the annual export quota at 800 lion skeletons. Even more alarmingly, Molewa, without stakeholder participation, took the incomprehensible decision to almost double the quota in 2018 to 1,500 skeletons.

On July 11th 2018, the person in charge of the quota at the Department of the Environment told us categorically that no quota had been set for 2018. A few days later the DEA was forced to make a public announcement about the 2018 lion bone quota following a public outcry when a letter from Molewa, dated 7th June 2018, informing the provinces of the new quota allocation, was leaked. The undeclared reasons behind government’s decision to conceal this information from interested and affected parties needs to be brought to light and interrogated.

Two members of the Wild Animal Protection Forum South Africa namely the EMS Foundation and the Ban Animal Trading organisation spent eighteen months gathering information and investigating South Africa’s international lion bone trade.

The data that was gathered forms the basis for this report: The Extinction Business: South Africa’s Lion Bone Trade.

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THE UNWILLINGNESS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT TO CHANGE TERMS OF REFERENCE OF THE EXCLUSIONARY WILDLIFE FORUM

Minister Edna Molewa
https://www.dffe.gov.za/speech/molewa_firsthuntingindaba_opening

In 2005 the Minister and Department of Environment established a ‘wildlife forum’ to meet exclusively with pro-hunting and pro-trade organisations and deliberately excluded labour, welfare and civil society, stakeholders. NGOs and conservation groups were denied membership. The ‘wildlife forum’ provided a platform for hunters and those with vested wildlife consumptive interests to shape government wildlife policy.  

No such forum existed for other key interested and affected stakeholders in the wildlife conservation and protection sector despite requests from the wildlife protection sector to be included in such a forum. By refusing to allow access to parties who do not reap a direct benefit from the exploitative industry itself, meant that the forum, by definition was discriminatory.

Given the unwillingness of the Department of Environment to change the Terms of Reference of the existing exclusionary ‘wildlife forum’ to include membership of South African wildlife animal protection and welfare organisations, in February 2018 twenty-three wildlife protection organisations officially requested the Minister for the Environment, Edna Molewa, to establish a wildlife forum with representatives of South African animal protection organisations. The representatives of these organisations organised themselves as the Wildlife Animal Protection Forum South Africa (WAPFSA).   

The purpose of the establishment of WAPFSA was to create a platform for dialogue and to provide the South African government with access to alternative viewpoints and additional information in order to provide the necessary tools to resolve issues of concern and to develop and strengthen policy for the advancement of the protection of wildlife, indigenous minorities and the environment. 

Please find a copy of the letter:

Letter-to-Minister-and-DEA-from-Wildlife-Animal-Protection-NGOs_re-Proposed-Wildlife-Forum_7022018Download

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