the oversight hearing by the subcommittee on fisheries wildlife and oceans will come to order subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on h r fifty the multi nationals species conservation funds result of the race reauthorization act of two thousand and seven and h r four six five the asian elephant conservation reauthorization act of two thousand and seven under committee rule four g the chairman and the ranking minority member can make opening statements if any members other have statements they can be included in the hearing record under unanimous consent while life especially tigers elephants and right now service captivate the human imagination sometimes in fear oftentimes in all these connection between human beings and their environment regrettably since the last half of the twentieth century expansion of the human footprint has collided with wildlife habitat all too frequently the result of this collision has been disastrous for wildlife populations especially for rhinos tigers and elephants whose population by the late one nine hundred eighty s had shrunk to a mere remnants of their original size and distribution congress was compelled to act and in one nine hundred ninety passed legislation to establish specific funds to provide matching grant support for conservation activities to protect conserve and resource these endangered populations these funds which would be reauthorized by h r fifty an h r for sixty five have leveraged limited federal dollars to provide critical support for conservation activities in range states these funds are produced a record of achievement of which we can all be very proud yet despite the many positive outcomes recent press reports indicate that we may be in fact losing the battle to conserve the species for example in two thousand and four investigations into traditional medicine shops in new york and san francisco found that virtually all stores inspected sold products containing parts of products from endangered rhinos in tigers india discovered in two thousand and five that had lost all of it in the tiger reserve in india due to poaching and that other reserves were in bad shape most recently the washington post reported on feb twenty seventh two thousand and seven that an international effort to halt illegal killing of elephants for their ivory has all but collapsed in most of africa i support both bills and want to see them pass quickly through the process but in light of these reports i think it is essential that this subcommittee look critically at these programs to determine if they are addressing the most glaring challenges is specially the illegal but anyway it's great to be back here to talk about these very important issues since coming to congress in one thousand nine hundred four i have consistently supported efforts to protect and conserve many wildlife species i'm an thousand and conservation act of two thousand and the marine turtle conservation act of two thousand and four in fact several of these laws were reauthorized or initially reacted during the six years aware of the plight of asian elephants frankly i was startled to learn that in the early one nine hundred ninety s there were less than forty thousand asian elephants living throughout the world in the wild these populations were located in thirteen south and southeast your nation countries in addition there were only fourteen populations of one thousand or more individual elephants in a contiguous area which greatly reduced the long term important legislation into law or seven thousand nine hundred ninety seven the fundamental goal of public law one hundred five ninety six was to create the asian elephant conservation fund during the past decade the secretary of interior has carefully reviewed nearly three hundred conservation grant proposals to assist asian elephants and i'm pleased to report that one hundred seventy one grants have been awarded to various government and non governmental entities these green grants every seven point eight million in federal funds and in excess of ten million in private matching money  the types of approved projects funded include emergency elephant conservation support for those countries adversely affected by the saami disaster in indonesia  sir lanka establishing an elephant conservation working group in thailand promoting eco tourism of elephants assess the have habitat needs of elephants in malaysia and implement a program for monitoring illegal killing of elephants madam chair and conservation funds have had a profound impact on protecting replaceable species and in the long run i am convinced they will help to ensure that they will not disappear in the future by allowing a small amount of federal funds are government has been able to finance worthwhile project of asian elephant elephant conservation authorization act will extend this vital law at existing authorization levels until september thirtieth two thousand and twelve this will allow the secretary of the interior to approve additional meritorious projects in the future there is no question that we treats its natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased in value the road to extinction is a one way street and we must work at this time i would like to recognize the panel of witnesses all experts in their respective areas the honorable assistant director for international affairs u s fish and wildlife service d conservation operations the wildlife conservation society and mr john barry executive director of the national zoo testifying on behalf of the association of zoos and aquariums the chairwoman now recognizes the stencil to testify for five minutes the timing lights on the table will indicate when your time has concluded all witnesses written statements will be submitted for the hearing record to mr stansel thank you madam chairwoman i appreciate the opportunity to be here to discuss h r fifty and h r four sixty five and the services implementation of the multinational species conservation fund the administration supports reauthorization of both facts and we appreciate the subcommittees continued interest in and support for international species conservation we look forward to working with you on the reauthorization of these acts as members of the subcommittee are aware of the service has a long history in international wildlife conservation as a party to the convention on international trade in endangered species the rams our convention on wetlands the convention on nature protection and western hemisphere and many other international conservation agreements the united states shares responsibility for supporting and implementing measures to provide for the conservation of hundreds of species of plants and animals both here and abroad within this context the service will soon begin a strategic planning proc process focused on our international conservation efforts our goal is to ensure that we are effectively addressing the threats facing international species and their habitats recognizing how important this strategic planning process is we believe that involving external partners is key to the development of a broad and visionary strategy to lead international while i've conservation into the future and we will keep the sub miti informed as we proceed i would allow no like now to focus on the acts being considered for reauthorization and highlight some of the conservation successes that they have supported have a profound impact on the economy culture and spiritual life of people around the world throughout recorded history not only for their ivory elephants have produced have provided a source of food in skins today the continental elephant population is thought to be between five hundred thousand and six hundred thousand the african elephant conservation act has greatly assisted efforts to conserve this species much of the axis is a direct result of the unique small project focus on on the ground conservation projects that the service developed to begin the implementation of this act some seventeen years ago between one thousand nine hundred and two thousand and six the service funded two hundred eighty one grants in thirty one range countries as a result of this fund nearly seventeen million has been distributed through these grants which leveraged nearly seventy two million from its partners in other words for every one dollar distributed the fun leverage an additional four dollars in conservation in zambia the fund supported a project that is developed chili peppers as an elephant deterrent compounds derive from chili peppers grown by subsistence farmers in areas where elephants sometimes damage crops are now used in combination with other methods to deter elephants from feels and gaining profit is gaining popularity throughout the continent using this concept farmers can protect their fields and also gain revenues from excess production the fund is helped build capacity throughout the elephants range by training conservationists and researchers and providing non lethal material support for anti poaching teams the newly created national parks some of the ball has benefited greatly from the support of the fun to develop effective management strategies and the training of protected area personnel aerial surveys and study to determine seasonal migrations of elephants in cooma national park chad and the southern sudan were conducted in two thousand and six in two thousand and seven as results although these roles alts are encouraging they emphasize the need to protect these last remaining large herds in the face of the legal ivory and bush meat trades and then the proliferation of firearms resulting from years of civil war this timely assistance from the fund has allowed biologists to determine where elephants or vulnerable and how to bring protection without which these last remaining populations would likely disappear rhinos and tigers are magnificent creatures they're big powerful and charismatic unfortunately the same qualities make them popular targets rhino and tiger body parts are still in high demand on the global macro black market between one thousand nine hundred six and two thousand and six the service funded three hundred twenty two grants and twenty three countries under the rhino in tiger conservation act for this nine point three million of appropriated funds for these on the ground projects more than eighteen million in matching contributions were contributed by our partners the fund has supported efforts in africa and asia to conserve rhinos in indonesia the fund has partnered with the forest department there and a non governmental organisation in support of the highly effective critically needed anti poaching patrols that protect both sumatran and job and rhinos in africa in partnership with the zambian wildlife authority we work to reintroduce the black rhino this reintroduction is a major significance as poaching decimated the country's rhino pa elation in the eighty's and by one thousand nine hundred eighty the animals were declared nationally extinct in zambia the fund has supported projects through asia aimed at conserving and protecting tigers and their habitats in india the fund has supported many workshops to train teachers to conduct tiger conservation education classes that actively engage students who live near tiger habitat we have a number of projects that we fund for asian elephants between one thousand nine hundred six and two thousand and six the service funded one hundred seventy one projects in twelve countries under the act more than doubling the seven point eight million and appropriated dollars with matching contributions in closing i would like to reiterate the important roles these acts have played in our efforts to conserve african and asian elephants rhinos and tigers although serious threats still loom in many areas the funds have made the difference between survival and disappearance for the species in many instances collectively the multinational species conservation funds encourage and assist efforts to concern some of the world's most ecologically and sociologically important wildlife species on the ground actions and other related conservation measures we firmly believe that these funds serve as an effect eventually money in providing immediate and long term conservation benefits they have and we believe will continue to service catalysts for co operative conservation efforts among the governments of the world non governmental organizations and the private sector madam chairwoman and members of the subcommittee this concludes my opening remarks and i would be happy to answer any questions that you have thank you thank you very much mr stansell and your entire statement will be entered into the record provided to the committee i  now welcome and recognize to testify dr michael save from the national do you agree society and i understand that in order to be here this morning you had to significantly juggle your schedule so i want you to know that i very much appreciate it you have carved out time to come before the subcommittee at this critical time for wildlife conservation in africa in or around the globe and i also wish to mention to you mr dr fate  and congratulate you on your cover story in national geographic it was an extremely informative article about the plight of the elephants and i was shocked to see the methods that poachers are using to obtain ivory in other parts so branch in africa i knew him just as a guy who tried to do conservation in africa that's a heck of a title at the time french and german logging companies were making huge inroads into the virgin rifles shells and rifles it was kind of your typical wild west frontier and we were trying to act like environmental  course we needed money and we'd run across this guy named u s fish and wildlife service and he was at that time in charge of the african elephant conservation fun we sent him a proposal to buy an airplane to do comprehensive surveys over a very wide area about the size of alaska in central africa to look at where  making inroads where we could identify potential protected areas where governments might be able to manage those landscapes more rationally and can received our proposal and first asked if we were crazy and second asked if we had any experience doing this kind of flying and we said yes to the first question and no to the second question because anybody who would do that kind of flying would have to be crazy and over the years we put about four or five hundred hours  on that plane over those forests and a lot of other places and we're able to piece together i think a conservation strategy that started way back then that has ended up  started when you did and made the inroads that you did when you did no protected areas today and those logging companies may well have been able to exploit those i think that that's one of the main points i'd like to make that the african elephant conservation fund is always on the front lines and they're there before anyone else and it makes a huge difference the talks about leveraging funds that when you think about national park and lo and behold same kind of thing unfolding there elephant seems to be fairly out of control but what people don't realize is that in the past twenty northeastern we got a grant from the african elephant conservation fund to work with a national park this is very recently as you mentioned in the article we talk about what we found what we were able to do  national park a few weeks ago he has promised a great deal of reinforcement to the on the ground management teams there and we are currently raising funds for an  him and weave through appeals in the national geographic raised enough money for that airplane already in the magazine has only been up for a couple of weeks i just returned from southern sudan again over twenty five years and the end result of that survey was that on the west side of the nile we found that elephants have pretty much disappeared that wildlife has been exterminated mostly by arab horsemen  in that area to the east of the nile we think we may have rediscovered what may well be the largest migration of large mammals on the planet again a project supported by this fund so concluding i have a lot more comments in my testimony i would say that the african elephant conservation fund in my personal experience which i think is pretty long one with the fund funds cutting edge projects all over the continent funds from the act supported training and equipment of vital teams but also training of customs agents that stems across border trade to china in two thousand and six arranged by a survey by government and n g o partners which was also supported by the rhino tiger act showed a strong recovery to about four hundred fifty animals these remarkable results were also aided by a domestic trade ban in tiger parts in china that was inactive in one thousand nine hundred three the success of this amendment but all of the efforts and money that have gone into this effort are now under threat china is considering reversing the ban to accommodate trade from chinese tiger farms that currently houses many a four thousand animal this action would lead to tremendous pressure on the remaining five thousand tigers in the wild the traffic report of which i brought copies and of which the man chairman could you repeat what you just said about the chinese and would like to allow to happen legally in their country which was illegal until now i would like to submit the executive summary of this report for the record with your permission please  it also reveals that illegal tiger wine is already available from tiger farms in china and that this illegal trade is fueling a resurgence of poaching in russia and in india just a month ago one of the biggest of the tiger parts was made in the russian far east to china we fear that this if this ban is lifted in china all our conservation successes and investments that were made in the last fifteen years will have been in vain we hope that this committee and the u s government will work with us to prevent china straight from being lifted there's no question that these programs have been instrumental in saving the tiger in the russian far east but why should congress continue to support them in the future first as mentioned above there is no time to let down our guard we have learned the hard way that endangered species with a large price tag on their head are continued and direct support that is fast acting second the role of these programs is often as a catalyst as mr stencil mentioned they bring together multiple partners and leverage enormous amount of funding of about thirty four million in grants awarded over the past sixteen years one hundred million  matching funds and in kind contributions from governments and n g o s alike it's an impressive three to one match overall finally allison and tigers are important to the american public conservation groups and zoos like those represented on the panel today are joined by broader coalition of sportsman and animal group protection groups that represent millions of americans this is also evident from the strong bipartisan support that these bills have received in the past few species also symbols we encounter in everyday life we see him in industry a slight aches and in politics it's hard to imagine a mascot that is an extinct species in closing i'd like to reiterate the strong support for the reauthorization of these act and the legislative changes that are mentioned in my testimony but i would also like to briefly touch on the appropriation issue last year rhinos tigers and elephants an appropriation of four point four million out of the twenty million conservation act i'm here representing the views of the wildlife conservation society which was founded in one thousand nine hundred five as the new york to a logical society of the bronx with one hundred twelve year history of field conservation the largest professional field staff of any international conservation organization and nearly three hundred projects worldwide we have a keen interest in all three pieces of legislation these bills reflect the importance of american citizens on conserving the wild wonderful iconic and inspiring creatures of the earth animals like rhinoceros elephants and tigers are culturally important to us americans and to other people around the world and their conservation is really a global responsibility others have summarized the current status of the species which unfortunately is not as good as we would like the committee recognizes but unfortunately there is a need for active conservation of elephants tigers and rhinos if they are to despite significant threats to the species conservation action can change the situation existing grant programs previously funded by the american people i've been enormously successful these programs are efficiently run through the fish and wildlife service they provide timely direct financial support to high priority field efforts and we encourage the use of similar operational mechanisms for future appropriation including bills such as that proposed same some of the most threatened right cats and where kainat wildlife conservation society strongly supports strategies that focus on individual species the public relates to individual species and species approaches are effective on the ground these programs have high conservation impact broad reach they spur scientific and conservation innovation and have tremendous financial and programatic leverage i'd like to close my comments with a few examples of what i mean by impact reach innovation and leverage conservation impact is often greatest when a project has local national and global influence with the support of both elephants the wildlife conservation society has been a key and geo partner of the society programme monitoring the illegal call of the killing of elephants across asia and africa through the process we've helped develop monitoring programs that are applied across the assisted international and local n g o s academic institutions and government agencies to conservation on the ground where it's needed thousands if not tens of thousands of people have been involved with these projects the granting process  innovation can be much simpler when we train african farmers to grow chili peppers and others have mentioned the huge financial leverage of these grants and i don't dispute that they have really done a great job i think far beyond the direct match that is provided in inspiring others to fund work i've talked about the policy leverage but what i really want to emphasize is that these grants leverage the national capacity of government staff across asia in africa they develop the capabilities of local n g o s activists and support the growth of the head of the civil society in countries where civil society orly develop or sometimes actively repress the small grants widely dispersed organizations implementing conservation activities in remote areas of developing countries extend the reach and the visibility of the u s government in a positive and relatively expensive way the very survival of the species rests in the hands of our generation how much poorer would the world be without these  animals what accountability will we have for our children our children's children if they were to vanish given the enormity of this responsibility in the urgency of the need for increased conservation action we urge the subcommittee and the congress to act quickly and positively on both  authorization and funding and i thank you for the opportunity to comment and to work with you on these bills would be happy to answer any question thank you very much mr ginsburg the chairwoman now recognizes our final witness mr john barry and we haven't forgotten you it's just my notes did not correspond with the seating arrangement mr john barry is the executive director of the national and he's going to testify on behalf of the association of zoos nterior department is the assistant secretary for management and budget there i got to work with the fish and wildlife service in implementing these programs in my last employment opportunity the national fish and wildlife foundation and now at the national zoo our scientists and scientists throughout the association of zoos and aquariums and working with conservation organizations at this table are helping to accomplish the work on the ground to make a brighter future i'd like to just make three points for you speaking from that level of experience first this program is one of the most professionally managed that i have encountered in the federal government in terms of its outstanding job i can tell you that i've seen it i know it they are managing this program well and you can rest assured on that and i think that's a critical thing for this committee to be aware of second to leveraging that you talked about even more significant numbers thirty thousand and falling fast tigers less than five thousand rhinos in many cases some of the species less than a thousand these animals are all heading for the cliff rachel carson said something very wise and that is that nothing lives to itself nothing lives to itself if these animals go extinct if they go over the cliff they may well be a premonition of our in fact our own species it is essential that we fight and use every fiber in our spirits and in our hearts in our souls to turn that reality around the tide is against  floating on that tide that we all can cling to continue support of this program thank you thank you mr berry statements and i want to thank all of the witnesses for their extraordinary statement and information that the committee has received and also i'd like to recognize mr from wisconsin member of the committee and at this time the chair before going into  of this very important situation and frankly it's a situation that doesn't get the attention that i'm going basis at least that it should unfortunately i'm going to be unable to stay  for the question period but i just wanted to say that to tell you how appreciative each of the members who are in attendance here today are for your being here for your testimony and also madam chair lady if i may opportunity even to be here particularly where the asian elephant authorization is concerned as well as the other issues raised here that's mr saxton on standing effort and behalf of the questions raised in acts that we even hear today to talk about it at all let alone to see to the funding question that i want to pay personal tribute to him he's the one that alerted me to this situation i guess it's almost ten years ago now and i've considered a privilege to be working with him and want to help him do my pledge my best to carry on the legacy that he established with legislation he sponsored this point thank you thank you very much and these statements will be entered into the record i will now proceed with the questions for our witnesses and reminding the members that the committee rule three c imposes a five minute limit on questions and the chairwoman will recognize members for any questions they may wish to ask i'll begin i want to thank all of you again for your compelling statements that demonstrate how these funds have provided pivotal financial assistance in the global effort to preserve in the wild rhinos tigers and elephants yet regrettably you all pain a very sobering picture that unless more is done to address the illegal trade in wildlife and habitat loss within range states the future survival of the species remains tenuous dr fay have we arrived at a tipping point for some of these populations especially elephants and is there anything we can do through these bills to increase the leverage of these grants or to portugal took about eight months we flew about three hundred feet above the ground in about six hundred hours in the small seem to spend half my life  airplanes and what i discovered flying around the continent for almost a year was almost all wildlife today except in a few confined to protected  wildlife look at your moving map near like oh yeah we just arrived in a protected area i think that we have a lot of opportunities in places like central africa and one of the great surprises of  the century perhaps is that in a place where all we hear is doom and gloom southern sudan we discover that we may well still have the greatest migration of wildlife on the planet so i think that it underscores a few things that if you put your mind to it and you spend the resources that are necessary if you are on the ground when you need to be and you  continue to support these conservation efforts not only will wildlife go on existing but every single one of these countries evolves significantly over time and when you look at a country like zambia for instance where people were and it was all doom and gloom there two decades ago in the eighty's when the african ivory wars basically were going on  it looked like the elephants would not survive in that country and today a protected area system is is i would say booming and wildlife populations are seemingly doing much better have a much better future so i think that if anything what we need to do is increase significantly our contribution to conservation efforts worldwide and if we do that as a nation i think that  you very much dr fay i have another question for dr klein's indoor are arranged any further ahead today in building their own capacity for wildlife monitoring law enforcement research and public outre really shown a signal that the world cares about this like in russia just by instituting these focused tiger monitoring brigade the russian government has really increased capacity on stemming this trade as was evidenced by th and they may have as many as three to five hundred animals in captivity now where the tigers from the wild that have been captured you say captivity they were in the wild in there or they've been bred domestically circumstances yes mr chairman there may have been originally some tigers from the wild sure and i would assume that the majority of the animals the individual they have now were captive raised there they're fairly easy to  i don't understand i'm sorry to interrupt you but i don't have all the time i'm not quite sure then why would they not want to because they have the firearms and they can use these although i'm not very happy about it i mean the idea but i long since given up the idea that you can tell a chinese anything or ask him anything why would that work against the band wouldn't dad i mean it's counterintuitive my son she would be as if you have these farms and they're expanding and you can and breeding is not a difficulty the way it is say with pandas and and some other animals in captivity why wouldn't that be an incentive to keep the ban because they're able to get what they want for these little medicinal purposes and so on the usually the ban prohibits the trade from these farms that's exactly the point it's a domestic trade ban because if you open these farms for trade it poses a tremendous loophole to launder wild tigers into the trade show you mean that the  illegality would listen they're going to take place anyway i mean if somebody is willing to do that i don't think the ban would stop them one way or another what this report that came out today specifically documents how successful this ban has been in reducing the availability of tiger bone in the market and the use of tiger bone in traditional chinese medicine and actually it's almost extinct in china the tigers are used in traditional chinese medicine due to our efforts of education will is the is is this rush then is there somebody  have actively bred these tigers so when the ban asleep that they can make enormous amounts of money so they have been stockpiling these tigers that die and not what ok not with the idea then of trying to expand the the  thank you there are a couple of avenues that are available to the administration we're currently looking at we'll take the report that has just been released and take a critical look at that we have been concerned about this issue the issue of trade in tigers for quite some time and as was testified earlier the u s government has has been able to take some measures under a couple our domestic measures to try to encourage the conservation of tigers this issue will be discussed at the next meeting of the conference of the parties to the convention on international trade in endangered species this june where is the meeting going to be held a meeting will be held in the hague in the netherlands and it's a biennial meeting that will bring one hundred seventy eight or so countries together to talk about and this is on the agenda so we have that international forum to continue because the time is limited out and i ask you to follow up mr madam chair can i ask to get a follow up on this what we can do i don't propose i want to understand i'm not proposing to dictate anything to the chinese government or anything i'm going to work i'm just trying to figure out what can we do to try to encourage an opposite  conclusion here that they would lift the ban i'm not sure what that is but i'd appreciate if you could get to the committee what you're going to do may i ask madam chair is it you know the mention of the chairman ray hall and  or yourself i don't know who has the committee has jurisdiction over your committee have subcommittee jurisdiction you know is it our intention to try to have a membership attend the convention do you know offhand i would encourage it we'll take that into account me we will take that ok i would like very much to i think we need to follow up and go i can we do we have an invitation to go from the congress to the convention congressman you we have had historically we have had participation from members of the testimony very eloquently stated in passionately stated as well and i too would echo the comments of mr saxton it's incredibly important topic that really has a tension that this really deserves and hopefully with through the process we can seek improvements and specially in the appropriation process mr barry i was struck by some of the comments that you made in regards to how the federal procreation access to leverage a lot more patient from private entities i'm wondering if you care to elaborate on that are we talking about direct contributions or in kind contributions and is there anything we can do with the reauthorization courage more of that participation from outside groups congressman i think  that's a great question and i think obviously one of the largest things that supporters of the congress support of the tax benefit that one gets from supporting non profits you know that that continues and  it's essential and critical i think that the leveraging as you've heard and all of the testimony is just phenomenal and that's what you're hearing in those numbers is actual dollars that has been put into the pot into the kitty if you will to grow this program it doesn't really fully capture the volunteer hours that are put on that does anyone try to quantify that at all you know i don't know  if there's ever been a good analysis of that but i would venture to guess that the volunteer contributions in the volunteer hours that are put on this would would more than three times the actual dollar numbers so essential thank you is there anything in authorization that we can do that kind of sex up the legislation as far as encouraging more participation or has anyone really thought about how we go about that  three to one match or a four to one maj or five on you know some of those dollars and some of these places are incredibly hard to actually raise the dollars and and and and when that bar is set too high then in some of the most essential areas it could have that counter intuitive impact and i think that the current standards that the programs run under have worked they've worked well and they have drawn other support so i defer to other people at the table but i don't know if you need to do much there it's more a question of what other people the table of raised to making sure that the not only authorized but then that's followed through in terms of  where is the real challenge that we're facing is it habitat loss now or is it poaching a new legal trade what would you say that we need to be particularly concerned about at this stage  are if you look at the central african republic for instance eastern central african republic is largely empty of human beings and yet we've seen based on a survey we did there in two thousand that read did a survey that we did in one thousand nine hundred eighty five showed over ninety five percent decrease in what was one of the greatest wildlife habitats in areas on the continent most of that poaching is come from sudan the horsemen who have successfully killed probably over one hundred thousand elephants have driven the rhinoceros to extinction and it probably successfully killed millions of antelope at very low numbers i think that when you look at that situation it relates back to what we could have done from a land management  perspective twenty five years ago and i think that if we had been proactive in that area we may well find the situation that we're facing now and are for which is largely a natural resource war that is going on may not even exist today so i think that again the proactive approach is very important i think that supporting protected areas is extremely important so if you go to southern africa and south africa i think is a great example where  natural resource management in a very developed country is coming to the fore and people are expanding the protected area system their elephants are expanding their range due to  you all acknowledge in your statement to political instability civil war and the lack of economic opportunities within range states are powerful factors working against the long term survival of rhinos tigers and elephants yet these factors are outside the ability of the u s fish and wildlife service to address under current authorities mr stansell could you please expand on the service's strategic planning initiative to review international conservation programs  in any organization in the world we provide a tremendous amount of technical assistance and support to developing countries in their wildlife arena our strategic planning effort is designed to really take a hard look today at the issues that are facing a wildlife conservation i've been in this business for over thirty years and i can tell you that it's changed in that thirty year period the issues that that while life conservation challenges today are new they're changing and what we want to do within the service is work cooperatively with our stakeholders with our partners and designing a vision for the future of our collaboration in international law life conservation so that we can focus our efforts in the future to where it's most critically needed thank you mr ginsburg in the services internationally to be better coordinated and supported by other federal morning programs such as u s aid to address these critical social factors absolutely i think  the support from both the elephant funds and the gorilla fund the great apes fund have been instrumental in leading towards the creation of the congo basin for as partnership that has had a knock on impact with the french government and other governments in europe following suit and coming in that will increase the funding i think both for conservation but it also brings to bear the issue of the link between conservation and development we often look at them as as contrary or competing interests i think what we're finding  they often are but realistically better development can be done if you look at zambia the program we've been running dr fay alluded to where we are actually looking at the way in which agricultural development affects poaching are working on the theory that if you give people opportunities and take up their time with things that are profitable they may spend less time and less effort poaching including a marketing scheme for products that are grown in a way that is consistent with good wildlife management branding of those products and in that it's wild brand it is now market across ambient we're looking at marking it overseas in russia the same thing the post soviet union i mean you asked about conflict in the post soviet union period was a period of chaos it was not necessarily direct conflict but it was chaos despite that on the ground conservation efforts were successful we're now following up fifteen years later with a marketing scheme that looks at certifying the hunting leases that are the majority of the russian far east and occupy the majority of the siberian tiger range to make products that are tiger friendly that add value to the products it encourages the hunting lease managers to manage for prey and for tigers increases their revenue directly and indirectly so i think there are certainly ways that we can do this idea has been instrumental in that i am i'd like to mention however that i'm deeply worried that the role of the environment in both development and conservation is being greatly  reduced in the current id strategy and i would urge the committee to register their frustration perhaps or concern at the very least that environment is a critical part of usa id's nation and a critical part of of  governance globally and that it really should be part of our foreign policy thank you thank you dr we will take that under advisement i'm just curious dr what are your thoughts on this well if here we should go so i think that the u s government needs to have a reality check and i think that we need to start investing in conservation by orders of magnitude more immediately but that's my opinion thank you thank you very much doctor just dance ally understand that you have a pressing commitment that requires your immediate attention so i want to thank you very much for your participation this morning and you can be dismissed thank you very much madam chair we appreciate the opportunity to be here and we'd be happy if you have additional questions for the record would be happy to respond to those thank you thank you very much the chair now geographic society you mention the tax benefits for supporting the n g o s what are they presently and what about going at it from that angle we can do the reason i'm asking the question is is that if we can get the  i think we're going to be able to do that that's the easy part we can all sit here and get all the pictures taken right about and shake hands and do all that then comes the part about getting the money which we will pitch for from from this side for sure but what about what are the tax benefits of conservation that right now and can we what about the idea of coming at that for increasing it or making it easier or how we  get people to give to foundations like the conservation society you've probably got funds within the society right or the world wildlife fund must have funds within funds to right and the national geographic profits not just in the environment because at the time of passing away it is a time of reflection and also granting him money to carry things you care about and creating later about the idea i want to see small businesses this is not the place to argue that but what about the idea that you can get a break in your state jack says if you do well as long as you have an estate tax that is clearly the case the introduction of the ira a hundred thousand dollar contribution limit on the ira allowing people to make direct contributions out of their ira has been a phenomenal benefit i think there are creative corporate approaches right now it is very hard to convince corporations to give money to those that do do so with some reason exxon mobil  supporting a million dollars a year for tiger conservation not necessarily because they are directly supportive of tigers but because it is their logo it is their their their symbol and they have been fanaa making a million dollars a  minute i've had discussions with friends there about increasing the level i would look at that ok but that's that's the kind of thing i'm talking about i don't mind look the rich are going to get richer you know we can fight that out in some other legislation that they'll get a better break in terms of tax liability than they get now it doesn't bother me any what  how we could increase how do we get corporations not just individuals but corporations other entities to be able to to support you including even other foundations genius grant for example somebody named macarthur died i don't know what they did but they give hundreds of thousands of dollars away to people for thinking or drawing or whatever it is they do which i'm all in favor of but if they've got that kind of money to give away maybe they give some money away to what we want to accomplish here too so it just doesn't have to be individuals or corporations would you put your thinking caps on or ask the people that support you to give us and then we can go to the ways and means committee we can go to some of the  know not because there's a tendency madam chair in the resources committee to you know to get circular to get insular to look to ourselves and then hope every once in a while and somebody will say i didn't know i could do that you know and then show flashed out of the budget so i would say that we have great support from the american public already and we would ask that you do everything you can and to keep the funding from the course we'll do we'll try and do that no question about that but in the but additionally though we want to try and leverage in the private sector as much as we can and so your ideas on that get creative and let's see if we can do then very quickly  having had the opportunity to travel to africa some time back then chairman pombo which was an eye opener for me and and for those of us including my wife for example  right now and the conservation program because when we were there it was absolutely fabulous we thought it was and they were working in southern africa anybody know anything about that i had the pleasure of living in zimbabwe from ninety five and i agree with you at that time it was remarkable it was inspirational campfire was leading to the conversion of private farms into conservation areas it has more or less and it was a cross border were going on with on a coordinated us the idea of a regional program based and gather around that coordinated this process they invested not in kandahar but another similar parallel programming zambia i think mike's point is the right one right now  at the bottom zambia is doing rather well some of the models that were developed campfire being used in zambia quite effectively botswana botswana you know the great thing about salon is they have a lot of diamonds and that sort of allows them the pleasure in the luxury of  dealing with issues without having the economic pressure quite so great but i think the answer is right now things in zimbabwe are mass i am deeply concerned as you are a joke with our africa director that now is the time to invest in zimbabwe by all the stock is very capable at the process allowing organizations to nonetheless invest in places that are in crisis i think that has been instrumental whether that's in rwanda during the ninety's congo for the better part of twenty years much i have a final question here for dr plans indoor you noted in your statement tremendous recovery of the white rhino population in southern africa which had grow from approximately one hundred animals at the turn of the century to fourteen thousand five hundred animals so assuming that the same factors which inhibit the recovery of other threatened populations of africa wildlife also exist in southern africa how do you play in the remarkable recovery of the white rhino and can these factors be replicated elsewhere to benefit other populations of rhinos and populations of tigers and elephants  focus well aren't some of these processes in existed and why isn't it working as well as it did with the rhino because right now again we don't have enough money to fund everything so in the places that we are investing it is working and in the places where we don't have enough money to work then we were losing those or we're going to stop investment and we're going right back to square one what you're saying then is that there's more funding for this particular recovery the white rhino i think it always gets to the point where with losing that's good we throw a whole lot of money at it and attention and then when we get to a certain point our interest wanes and so like i said in my statement it's important that there's a continued question looking on the tax as an example right now support for the campfire program which is called community based natural resource management is cut out of the budget so it has been a very tremendous success that could just we could lose it all much was it previously i would have to check i don't know that answer you know that the debt had universal support in here because it's if you have an ideological point of view on that but it is reinstated in the budget service members like me thank you thank you very much so then what you're saying is such an amazing recovery of the white rhino because the o save the tiger fund and the smithsonian institution all worked together to produce this setting priorities for the conservation recovery of wild tigers looking down the road over the next ten years and this has become the road map over which the funding initiatives from each of our organizations is going to try to prioritize on the remaining species in these remaining habitat areas identifying the most critical ones and going after them they're there the places the houses on fire if we don't put it out we're going to lose them and it's a wonderful piece of science it's a great piece of work and it's one that the fish and wildlife service has also been coordinated into as well but i think  species in history there thirteen million dollars is represents that significant partnership and that underwrote this good piece of work i just would like to thank you without objection that it will be entered into the record chair recognizes mister thank you i've just gotten some information i did not mean to ignore you when you were speaking with the chairman before but some of the information are you aware of the short term ira that came into existence after katrina there was a small window i think that that benefit is on the verge of terminating suggestion has been made to me that there has been some benefit already to nonprofits from people who withdrew money ordinarily that's taxed in this area and they're contributing could propose to mr wrangle and mr mccurry and others about extending that that provision i'm not that i'm not familiar with it myself but it has a double benefit because it  deals with both capital gains tax and income tax at the same time and so yes that would be a fine way of dealing with proposal to the chair along those lines or make reference to it as to how it's worked at this point and perhaps we could could  just to to the ways and means folks in the finance committee in the senate that that might be something they could take a look at does that make sense and the cutoff date i think is the end of the year is that correct obviously those of us are concerned about human rights violations and so on it's it's always a tricky business when you're trying to deal with live governmental entities about which you might have some reservations of one kind and another but at the same time you don't want to cut off your opportunities to try and do the right thing in other areas mr abercrombie i'll start and then turn it over to josh and every one of us at this table as he's working there  as you mentioned it's a real tight rope it's obviously a tough place to be working and god bless every one of our people who's on the ground there some of them you know put themselves at personal risk dr peter line gruber with the national zoo in the smithsonian has been working there for a number of years and is satellite tracking asian elephants so that we understand their remaining habitats doing a lot of the similar work that michael's been doing but from a different angle of attack his conclusion is and this is not been published yet but he's working on this now with this colleagues from these organizations he says there's probably only ten remaining habitats in all of asia that are large enough to support healthy wild populations five of those are in my mar burma and so that if we're not working there for not doing the science and under understanding pretty clear that you go to various areas and you see the difference right away even in the brief sojourn that we made that i mentioned to you about going to southern africa you could see that right away it's visible even to lay people like myself that  you almost immediately pick up on all of this is a protected area and such and such is going on what about paying people off i'm a great believer in paying people off is one of the blocks from here we pay we pay everybody what about putting significant money i mean that's a rather indelicate way of putting it but nonetheless what about giving money to the burmese operate in my mar burma under license from the treasury department that allows us to work there it is illegal for us to use dollars to support to work with our counterparts on the ground and part of what you want to do in these programs is i wouldn't use the term i don't understand why is it illegal well we can bribe people all the time the federal government bribe people right but but what we  than use the term payoff what we like to do in these areas is build capacity through training that's what i get  let's make some suggestions about what we could do to actually support in terms of dollars i mean we make investment we call it foreign aid and why not if that means actually have all kinds of partnerships with people you can have a partnership government to government to support don't we do that with pandas in china right now no we actually give dollars in conjunction with chinese investment where pan concerned that's what i'm talking about i'm not again my moral right self righteousness doesn't extend to the point that that i'm going to say well we can't possibly do business with governments we don't like we do it all the time the question now is if there are government entities in marin maher elsewhere burma elsewhere that that have a responsibility in these areas why not enter into some kind of partnership in effect a kind of treaty with because it disappears because of the politics we get some suggestions in that area i just like to say that that's exactly what you're suggesting is exactly what we do and i've just come back from southern sudan after two months there and we've talked to many people from high to low from east to west and there's no doubt that every dollar that we invest in natural resource management conservation in a place like southern sudan today will have affects  on the future of that country for ever and i think that it does behoove us to look at the current portfolio of investments that the u s government makes and natural resource management and realize that they are decreasing rather than increasing in a period when we all recognize that the global crisis is upon us and that to me is very confusing i'm sure just conclusion i want to tell you i'm probably one of the few people on earth it's actually i backpacked through sudan many many years ago and one of the few people that was allowed to leave wildlife machine guns in my face but but my point being is that all you have to do is even even on an amateur level like i did it you can see what you're talking about is instantaneously sure that you thank you thank you very much mr abercrombie i don't know whether you missed dr fay's comments earlier when he said that he feels the hundred billion dollars that we're using for the middle east now he'd rather see it being used for some of these conservation efforts did you yeah all right i want to thank all of the witnesses for their valuable testimony and the members for their questions and members of the subcommittee may have some additional questions for the witnesses and we will ask you to respond to these in writing the hearing record will be held open for ten days for these responses if there is no further business before the subcommittee the chairwoman again thank the members of the subcommittee and our distinguished witnesses this morning the subcommittee now stands adjour