Cape Town - South African laws are failing to protect primates and are not preventing the negative consequences of the country’s so-called legal trade of these species and their body parts.
This is according to the EMS Foundation and Ban Animal Trading SA’s recently released report on their latest investigative research project, which relates to the questionable legal export of live primates and/or their body parts for hunting trophies from South Africa.
The conservation organisations called for a moratorium on the trade, hunting and killing of South Africa’s indigenous primates and the suspension of breeding, trading and keeping of exotic primates as pets.
It said this moratorium should be put into place immediately so that the poorly enforced, indefensible and shameful South African wildlife trade could be re-evaluated.
According to the report, this trade is characterised, among others, by data discrepancies, illegal shipments masquerading as legal exports, untraceable destinations/importers or addresses, absent verification measures, and compliance and enforcement negligence.
It concluded that relevant management authorities were unlawfully authorising and supporting the trade in and killing of South Africa’s indigenous primates.
EMS executive director Michele Pickover described this as a shocking state of affairs. Pickover said that for many years South African environmental authorities – nationally and provincially – had been allowing indigenous primates to be trophy hunted, persecuted and killed without doing proper population counts or having legislation in place to protect them.
“There is enormous suffering as a result, and the viability and health of their families and troops are at stake. They also play an essential role in ecosystems and biodiversity, contributing to regeneration and ecosystem health and providing important functions and benefits such as seed dispersal, pollination and regeneration,” she said.
Pickover said the current regulation and policy relating to the breeding, trade in, keeping, hunting and killing of (non-human) primates was “piecemeal” and did not pay attention to a precautionary approach to risk.
She said the Minister of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries, Barbara Creecy, needed to urgently institute a moratorium on the killing and removal of indigenous primates until the government conducted proper population counts, had a critical mass of scientific data, and put legislation in place to protect them.