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regard to commercial shipments. 



I have also attached three letters from Ethiopian government officials pleading with 

 the U.S. to allow the importation of a few elephant trophies per year. The Ethiopian 

 officials say quite plainly that the revenue from the elephant hunting is necessary for 

 the continued administration of their wildlife conservation programs and to keep 

 poaching under control. The U.S. response? Permits for importing elephant trophies 

 from Ethiopia were denied. 



In regard to cheetah, 1 have provided a copy of a 1993 letter from the U.S. Fish and 

 Wildlife Service denying an import permit. This is still U.S. policy, despite the CITES 

 resolution that I referred to earlier 1 have also provided you with material from 

 Namibia submitted to the 1992 CITES meeting that shows the conservation 

 importance of allowing this non-commercial trade in hunting trophies. This material 

 includes a letter from Peter Jackson, head of the lUCN's Cat Specialist Group, stating 

 that cheetahs m Namibia are not endangered and that the CITES quota is quite 

 reasonable. The lUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) and its 

 network of more than 5,000 top scientific experts represents the greatest expertise in 

 the world on wildlife conservation. 



Madame Chairman, we think that the record is clear that the way in which 

 bureaucrats within the United States have administered the ESA has accomplished 

 nothing but to place barriers in the way of Afiicans. U.S. officials, acting with 

 arrogance and without accountability, have turned the ESA into a tool for denying 

 economic benefits to poverty-stricken rural Africans and have accomplished little more 

 than mterfering with the conservation programs of African wildlife managers. 



The answer, in our view, is to make improvements in the ESA which: 



- recognize the human and conservafion benefits of wildlife use. especially 

 through programs that benefit rural communities and people; 



- give proper credence to the programs and decisions of the range countries; and 



- take advantage of the specialized capabilities and international reach of the 

 CITES treaty (on wildlife trade) 



Such changes will also assure that scarce U.S. budget dollars for endangered species 

 conservation are spent most effectively. 



For the record, I would like to say a few words about Safari Club International. .A.s 



