China to make more efforts on elephant conservation

A Chinese official has said that China will make more efforts on the fields of management, law enforcement, education and capacity building to help African countries battle elephant poaching.

Meng Xianlin, executive director-general of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora Import and Export Management Office of China, made the remarks Monday after the African Elephant Summit in Kasane, Northern Botswana.

China has also strengthened law enforcement, Meng said after the meeting, adding that in 2014, China worked together with 28 countries and international organizations where many illegal wildlife trades were seized and involved criminals were captured.

According to Meng, China has made commitment of 10 million dollars funds for wildlife conservation to Africa countries and now is pushing forward related issues.

Jeremy Eppel, Deputy Director of Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs of UK said China gave a very comprehensive report in the meeting on African elephant. He said through numbers of occasions he is aware how seriously China takes responsibility in tackling the crisis of wildlife.

China's commitment to 10 million dollars' funding to support conserving African elephants is also very valuable, while he said he would like to understand better how the projects using that money are being developed and see the actually results.

To further strengthen its efforts, China can do a great deal to show leadership in terms of further tightening enforcement and prosecution of criminals, finding those in China and elsewhere who are driving the trade and also in educating and changing behavior of its own consumers to understand impacts on consumption on the elephants in Africa.

Further, China also can do great deal working fully with the international community, as we see it doing here in Kasane and we saw it doing in London to demonstrate that it's a full parts in all aspects of tackling trade.

According to him, all parts have to make great efforts in conserving Africa elephants, but China has an important part to play in those stronger efforts.

Dawud Mume Ali, Director General of Ethiopian Wildlife Conservation Authority, said he expected China to support development of livelihood in Africa as improvement of livelihood will also help curb illegal wildlife trafficking. Besides, he expected China to invest mega projects including wildlife conservation projects in Africa and law enforcement.

Tom De Meulenaer, a scientific support officer of Secretariat of Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora(CITES) said China is playing a role in combating illegal trading in ivory.