By Balford Henry,
Senior Reporter
JAMAICA HAS been named as the leading regional illegal exporter of endangered species to the United States. The basis of the report is being questioned, however, by local environmental and fishing industry officials.
The island's illegal export of 1.2 million Queen Conch to the US between 1993 and 1997, most of which was transhipped from the Netherland Antilles, was way ahead of closest rival, Mexico, which exported just 687 endangered species, including 390 Yellow-crowned Parrots, 17 Boa Constrictors and 278 Green Iguanas.
But eight months after the information was first published, the combined expertise of the Natural Resources Conservation Authority (NRCA), the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade is still unable to explain how the country achieved this environmentally-unfriendly position.
According to a CITES (Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species) Secretariat report, 142,867 kilograms (approximately 350 pounds) or 1.2 million individual Queen Conch, were illegally exported to the United States from the wider Caribbean in 1994 and 1995.
The report said that 95 per cent of illegally traded conch meat was imported by the United States. Eighty three per cent of that amount came from Jamaica, of which 80 per cent actually originated in the Netherland Antilles, was exported to Jamaica and then re-exported to the United States. This compared with only 17,406 kilograms, of 12 per cent, which came from the next chief illegal exporter, Colombia.
According to a table of figures included in the report Jamaica was hundreds of times ahead of neighbours like Mexico, Honduras, Venezuela and Guyana in terms of the level of illegal exports of endangered species into the United States, although it was only cited for the Queen Conch.
The matter was first brought to the attention of the NRCA during the Ninth Intergovernmental Meeting on the Action Plan for the Caribbean Environment Programme and the Sixth Meeting of the Contracting Parties to the Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean Region, held in Kingston, February 14-18, this year.
However, up to now, neither the NRCA, the Ministry of Agriculture nor the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade is able to confirm, deny or even explain Jamaica's role in the illegal trade, how the island became associated with the re-exporting of Netherland Antilles conch into the U.S. or even where the Cites Centre obtained the information.
The NRCA, the local agency which collaborates with the CITES Secretariat on such matters, says it submits a report to the Secretariat at the end of each year, from which the Secretariat compiles its reports. But, Yvette Strong, senior director for biological resource management, who communicates with the Secretariat, denied that this information came from her agency.
She said that although prior to the Endangered Species Act coming on stream in April, only the trade in endangered species out of Jamaica was being monitored, she found it strange that conch could be brought to Jamaica from the Netherlands for re-export to the United States!
"I don't know of any trade route which runs from the Netherland Antilles to Jamaica to the United States," she said. She said that the NRCA has been in dialogue with the CITES Secretariat since February on the matter, she couldn't report any progress in those discussions:
"We are in dialogue with the CITES Secretariat and the matter of poaching and the illegal export of conch and we've requested from the Fisheries Division (of the Ministry of Agriculture) a list of all the countries which are involved in poaching in Jamaican waters. You just have to understand that these are things which go through diplomatic channels and they do take time," she said.
Indications are that the figures may have come from US sources, as the report credits that country with being "diligent in finding and reporting these illegal transactions".
The matter also came as a surprise to Parliament's Economic and Production Committee, headed by Ronnie Thwaites M.P., when it was reported by conch exporter Sydney Francis last week.
Neither the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' representative, Norma Taylor-Roberts, nor Director of Fisheries, Andre Kong, was able to explain how the conch has passed through Jamaica to the United States, either. However, they promised to investigate the charges and report back to the committee as soon as possible.
The 1.2 million illegal Queen Conch involved is a comparatively minor amount, matched with the 58 million individual Queen Conch exported by Jamaica between 1993 and 1997, according to the CITES report figures. Of this total, 61% was exported to the United States and 36 per cent to France. But, there has been no legal conch fishing locally for the past two seasons due to differences between the Ministry and conch exporters.
However, the fact that Jamaica topped the CITES Secretariat's list of countries which were named as the main sources of illegally exported endangered species into the United States, is a matter of concern to the Government and the sector.
