En Route Dar es Salaam, Tanzania–(ENEWSPF)–July 1, 2013 – 10:26 A.M. SAST
MR. CARNEY: We have a very exciting briefing for you today with some guests. Let me just begin by welcoming you aboard Air Force One and thanking you for traveling with us today as we go to Tanzania. I hope you enjoyed our stop in South Africa — two stops.
Did everyone see the statement from the President about the wildfires? Okay, so I don’t need to read that to you. Obviously, the President is being updated on that situation regularly, and you saw his statement about the tragic loss of so many firefighters who were selflessly combating these fires on behalf of the residents of Arizona.
What I’d like to do is organize this sequentially. We have — in addition to Ben Rhodes, we have Grant Harris, Senior Director at the NSS for African Affairs. He’s going to brief you, give you a quick overview of some of what the President will be doing in Tanzania, and one of the initiatives that we’ll be putting forward. Then we have Mike Froman, the newly confirmed Mike Froman, the newly confirmed USTR, who can talk to you about a trade initiative.
As those guys talk to you, ask them questions on their subjects, then we’ll let them head back upfront and then Ben and I can take questions on some other matters. Before we get to Grant and Mike, Ben will give you a brief overview of today’s schedule.
MR. RHODES: As you know, we have a bilateral meeting when you land and then a press conference. Then we have the roundtable with business leaders, and the President will then speak to a forum of a larger group of business leaders. Mike can talk to you about who is going to be attending and what the goals are for the event with business leaders as well as some of our trade initiatives here in East Africa. Grant can speak to you about an executive order that the President is signing on wildlife protection today.
So then picking up the schedule again, after that CEO forum, there will be a state dinner tonight. Then just a scheduling update — tomorrow, President Bush will be joining President Obama at the wreath-laying ceremony at the embassy, where they will be marking the tragic loss of life at the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania, meeting with some of the embassy staff there. So the two Presidents will be together at that event. Then the President will have his own independent event at the Ubungo power plant, which actually Mike can talk to you about as well. And as you know, the First Lady is joining Mrs. Bush’s forum — not today but tomorrow as well.
Q Are there going to be — are the two Presidents going to make any remarks whatsoever at that wreath-laying? Or is it a silent event, essentially?
MR. RHODES: I’m not anticipating — I think this is just a wreath-laying. We can take questions on that. Why don’t we have these guys go — so Grant can help you on the wildlife EO.
MR. HARRIS: Hi.
Q Would you just introduce yourself so we can have it on tape?
MR. HARRIS: Sure. My name is Grant Harris. I’m the Senior Director for African Affairs at the National Security Staff. I wanted to take a moment and discuss some of the wildlife trafficking issues, including — because it’s hitting Southern Africa and Eastern Africa so hard. And the President will be speaking about this today and also signing an executive order.
Just one moment on what the problem is, is that in the last few years, wildlife trafficking has really exploded in terms of scale and also in terms of the types of poachers and organized crime networks that are involved in this activity. And it’s decimating the populations of some of Africa’s iconic animals, including rhinoceros and elephants as well. Some estimates put this trade at $7 to $10 billion a year.
Some of the reasons why we think that this is so important — first is because of the conservation angle and that some of these iconic animals are actually on the verge of extinction or heading in that direction. To give you a sense in terms of the value, a rhinoceros horn is worth $30,000 per pound on this black market, which is literally worth greater than its weight in gold. And ivory is trading at $1,000 per pound.
The second reason is it’s a security issue. As we see criminal networks getting increasingly involved — you see poachers with night-vision goggles and high-powered rifles. You see also some rebel militias trading in ivory and rhinoceros horns as a source of currency and value, and so that’s fueling some of the problems and conflicts that we’re seeing.
The third is that it’s degrading good governance, because this is fueling corruption and money laundering, and it’s degrading some of the strong institutions that we’re trying to partner to actually build.
The fourth is that there’s an economic angle and an economic threat here as well — both for the communities and the countries — including because these animals are important for communities and livelihood, but also for tourism, for the countries themselves.
And then fifth and finally, it’s a health threat because this wildlife, as it’s trafficked, obviously is not being properly inspected at borders. And so we’ve seen disease spread through this, including some links to SARS, Avian Influenza, and other issues like that.
So I wanted to give you a quick sense as well of what the President will be talking about and what we’re doing for the U.S. effort. One thing that we’ve been doing so far is raising the global profile of how bad this issue is and the international efforts underway to try to improve the situation. For instance, in 2012, we worked very hard in a Leaders Declaration coming out of APEC, which addressed this issue. We’ve also had a massive diplomatic campaign, including under the leadership of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she was at the State Department, convening people at State and making this a big diplomatic element of our policy.
The second thing that we’re doing is providing training and assistance. And one thing that — for instance, in Botswana, we have an international law enforcement academy that helps provide technical assistance and build capacity. Today, the President is going to be announcing a new $10 million to support these efforts, which is going to help both the region across the board —
Q Ten billion or ten million?
MR. HARRIS: Ten million, yes, with an “m.” Yes, million — $10 million. That’s going to help Tanzania, in particular, but especially South Africa and Kenya and countries across the region. He’s also going to be talking about how we’re working with Tanzania to help them develop a strategy, and he’ll be detailing an employee from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to help them develop an effective national strategy on this.
Thirdly is we’re supporting global networks. And some of the funding that we’ve been developing in our diplomatic efforts are designed precisely to better network the law enforcement professionals and everyone involved in preventing this wildlife trafficking so that across the globe we’ve got a more effective response.
Fourth is on trying to reduce demand through public awareness about the effects of this trafficking and also making people really aware, as well as honoring activists and people in the field.
And then fifth, in terms of organizing the U.S. response, we’re tightening all regulations, which is something that is, in connection with this trip as well, taking a fresh look at, domestically, do we have all the right regulations on the books to prevent this. As Ben mentioned as well, the President is signing an executive order which is going to create a Presidential Task Force that will be looking at this issue and developing a national strategy to make sure that as the United States, we’re organized in the right way and that we’re being strategic about how to do this.
It’s also going to take a look at the organized crime angle and see whether there are additional steps under our national organized crime strategy that we should be taking with respect to this problem in particular.
With those tightened regulations and with this taskforce, we’ll also have an advisory committee that is going to be providing additional advice. These are outsiders — people outside government, I should say, to lend their perspective as well. So with that activity across the board, we’re hoping to up our game to try to have an even more effective response on this issue.
Q Would you call it — say it’s a $7 to $10 billion a year industry, what’s the country breakdown — where they’re being sent, basically?
MR. HARRIS: A lot of the markets are in Asia, in the Pacific. At the same time, the United States is the second-biggest market, lamentably, and so that’s another reason that we want to look at our regulations and everything that we’re doing. And we’ve also — in terms of where this is coming from, as I mentioned, particularly in Southern Africa and East Africa, it’s reaching epidemic proportions in terms of the loss of wildlife.
Q What kind of regulations are enforced in other countries? Is this something you’re going to — that the administration will discuss, for example, with China and its outreach to those other countries? I mean, do you need — if the U.S. does it on its own, can it be effective?
MR. HARRIS: Absolutely. We cannot be effective on this by ourselves, and it’s something that we — that’s why we have such a strong diplomatic push, including through APEC, including in our bilateral and our multilateral diplomacy.
It’s an issue we’ve discussed with China, with Russia, with international partners around the globe. And it’s another reason that we’re focused on these wildlife networks, because the short answer is we need this to be a global focus if we’re going to be effective.
Q Did this come up in meetings between the President and President Xi, for example, the other week?
MR. RHODES: I know that the President has raised this issue and — I’ll have to check whether it specifically came up with President Xi. I know it has come up at the presidential and secretary-of-state level with the Chinese. A lot of these syndicates are based in Asia, and China is a significant destination for some of this wildlife trafficking.
So what the intent here today is, essentially, how can we change our regulatory structure to prevent these goods from being imported in the United States; how can we provide resources and assistance to governments that want to do more but don’t necessarily have that capacity. Because what you’re dealing with here is if you have significant national parks here, there’s a capacity issue in terms of how do you provide security.
There’s a corruption issue in so far as some of these syndicates come with more money than governments have to pay their own staff. So you have to put in place protections, both in terms of securing these parks, but also improve the methods that they use to ensure that their police forces are educated, and understand what the threat is, and what to look out for.
Q Are you getting the cooperation you want from other countries in this? China, for example?
MR. RHODES: We’ve gotten good cooperation from some countries. I think we could do better, though. I mean, I think this is an area where we could have better cooperation from China. We’ve sought to put it on multilateral agendas in the Asia Pacific. As Grant mentioned, it comes up at APEC, for instance. So we’ve sought to bring it into particularly our Asian multilateral forums.
Q Can you say also which species in particular are the worst impacted by this?
MR. HARRIS: Absolutely — rhinoceros and elephant are the two species in particular that are being decimated. For instance, for a rhinoceros there are about 50,000 right now left in the world. That number was about 600,000 in the mid-20th century, and so you’ve seen a dramatic drop. And a rhinoceros is killed every 13 hours in South Africa, for instance.
Q What’s the dollar value —
MR. HARRIS: It’s about $30,000 per pound for a rhinoceros horn, which is literally more valuable than its weight in gold. And ivory is trading at about $1,000 — I shouldn’t say trading because this is — our estimates of the black market worth is $1,000 per pound for ivory. And the total estimates, which we think may even be conservative, is $7 to $10 billion globally for this black market.
Q I’m sorry if you answered this in response to Julianna already, but did you say how much of that $7 to $10 billion is going to the United States?
MR. HARRIS: We don’t have numbers on the breakdown precisely in terms of countries, particularly since it’s an estimate. We just know that there’s more that we can be doing domestically, which was another reason that we’ve got various agencies, including the Department of Interior, making sure that with the statutes we have on the books that we have the most effective regulations possible to prevent the U.S. from being a market for this.
Q Would you say that’s more than half? Or more than a quarter of that? Just how to gauge what percent of that $7 to $10 billion goes to the U.S.
MR. RHODES: We believe that we’re the second-largest after China in terms of the market for these goods. So that gives you a sense of it. China is the largest market, the U.S. is second, and there are significant other places in Asia.
Q So U.S. is second to China, not second to Asia, right?
