Edna Bomo Molewa (right), South African minister of environmental affairs, at the Paris climate change conference last year, with China’s Xie Zhenhua and India’s Prakash Javadekar. Photograph: Jacky Naegelen/Reuters Supported by Edna Bomo Molewa
South African minister of environmental affairs
Over the next two weeks, South Africa will welcome an estimated 3,500 delegates to Cop17, the 17th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites).
More than 120 documents will be considered during the conference. Among these documents, 60 are proposals to amend the lists of species subject to Cites trade controls.
The conference will also deliberate on the role of Cites in securing the livelihoods of people living alongside wildlife and ensuring that communities are considered in terms of the interventions implemented in terms of the convention. Other issues to be discussed include the legal and sustainable wildlife trade, measures to tackle illicit wildlife trafficking, and enhanced enforcement.
Controversial and thought-provoking topics, such as interventions to address the poaching of elephants, the proposed listing of elephants, lions, rosewood species and sharks, and the illegal trade in rhino horn and pangolin, are areas that will probably receive the most international attention.
African countries, through their participation in the conference, have the potential to influence negotiations. South Africa will support proposals and working documents that promote sustainable use of natural resources, provided they have a scientific basis and are aimed at securing the long-term conservation of the species.
Cites Cop17 affords South Africa an opportunity to showcase our rich biodiversity and successful conservation initiatives, based on sustainable management practices. This has resulted in us becoming one of the leading conservation countries in the world today, having saved species such as the black rhino, white rhino and elephant from near extinction in the past century.
Our commitment to conservation includes the sustainable use of natural resources, which makes an important contribution to the socio-economic development of our poor and rural communities. These are priorities outlined in our country’s National Development Plan (NDP).
South Africa’s natural assets are critical contributors to our economy, food security and job creation. In this regard, game farming, the hunting industry, eco-tourism and bio-prospecting play a significant role.
It is important to outline what the South African Constitution says about environmental protection. It underscores the need for balancing economic and other development goals with environmental sustainability. It further affirms the right to an environment that is protected for the benefit of present and future generations – through reasonable legislative and other measures.
These measures should, among other things, promote conservation and secure the ecologically sustainable development and use of our natural resources, while at the same time promoting justifiable economic and social development.
It is an unfortunate reality that for centuries, natural resource protection came at a great cost to black South Africans. Not only were indigenous communities forced off their ancestral land in order for protected areas to be established, but our people were also denied meaningful participation in the natural resource economy. This is a legacy the South African government, led by the African National Congress (ANC), has been working to redress.
We now have a National Biodiversity Economy Strategy that promotes community-based and community-owned initiatives that will support both conservation and socio-economic development.
There is also our successful People and Parks programme, born out of the need to support the conservation of biodiversity in protected areas, while promoting socio-economic development in affected communities.
Through this programme, we are actively restoring and maintaining natural ecosystems to stimulate rural economies, upgrading and developing new infrastructure in protected areas to boost tourism, developing commercial assets for communities living around protected areas, and supporting related industries.
South Africa’s wildlife – especially the iconic Big Five – is our greatest treasure. It is our rich biodiversity that attracts thousands of tourists to our shores.
Prehistoric rock art in the Drakensberg region of South Africa – dating back more than fifty thousand years – is evidence of the deep and fundamental connections between our history as a people, and the wildlife alongside which we continue to co-exist .
For the next two weeks, the world’s attention will be focused on Cites Cop17 as delegates discuss how best to conserve species under threat from the grim illicit wildlife trade. Species conservation is the duty and responsibility of all: it is inextricably tied to our history, our society and our culture. Let us make sure we will reach the right decisions.
For the next year the Guardian will be running a year-long focus on the plight of elephants; get in touch with your stories here, and read more of our coverage here.
