102 



RE-aiEATING A BIRD TRADE THAT CONSERVES SPECIES AND ECOSYSTEMS 



If there is to be a trade in parrots, it must be conducted on a sustainable basis. There is, 

 however, no single definition of what constitutes sustainable use. A commonly accepted 

 biological basis for sustainable use of renewal resources is that harvest levels must not exceed 

 the number of individuals needed to replenish the population and should not have negative effects 

 on other components of die ecosystem. The only way to determine what harvest levels are 

 sustainable is to conduct detailed biological studies of the natural history, demography, 

 movements, and population size and trends of the species to be harvested over a number of years. 

 Quotas set by any other method will have little if any biological justification. Species with low 

 numbers locally or globally are not candidates for sustainable use, despite their high economic 

 value, until their populations can be recovered. It is impossible to set valid quotas for export if 

 the size of the nonexport (internal) trade remains unknown. Thus, future studies of the degree 

 of harvest for in-country markets are needed in many countries. 



Strong hopes should not be placed in sustained harvesting as a conservation strategy until 

 several demonstration projects can determine the feasibility and scale of harvesting. Experimental 

 programs of sustained harvesting must be run to find solutions to the problems of illegal 

 laundering of birds, poaching, reliable marking systems, and ovcrharvesting. Serious funds will 

 need to be allocated to enforce harvest and trade regtilations in both exporting and importing 

 countries. Enforcement of regulations must occur before exploiters will take harvest regulations 

 seriously. Harvesting is unlikely to be sustainable unless all of the conditions discussed above 

 can be satisfied. 



National and international regulation of harvest and trade must shift from the use of 

 national quotas to local harvest quotas based on scientific management plans. Using national 

 quotas to regulate harvests does not tie harvest levels into local conditions and provides no 

 impetus for ecosystem conservation. Harvesting of parrots is often done for extra income by 

 campesinos, who do not own the land, or poachers. The landowners (public or private) are 

 missing actors in the parrot trade and have no motivation for preserving wildlife as a source of 

 income. The process leads to the "tragedy of the commons" - parrots are overexploited because 

 they are viewed as nobody's property and their use is not locally regulated. The "middlemen", 

 buyers and importers who have profited most from the bird trade, do not make investments to 

 ensure the sustainability of the parrot trade in the region. Instead, they behave opportunistically 

 and move to less exploited areas, or shift to other q>ecies according to availability and 

 international prices. Thus, using national quotas to regulate harvests benefits most those 

 economic interests that lie outside of the region and that lack any commitment to sustaining the 

 birds or their habitats. Instead, harvest quotas must be developed on a site-by-site basis, such 

 as for a particular ranch or management area. Local harvest quotas would directly coiuiect 

 harvest levels to local parrot population changes and habitat conditions. 



Two important components of the international trade also need to be improved - 

 quarantine testing for diseases and the treatment birds in captivity. Quarantine in most countries 

 is not very effective because few diseases are monitored over a short period of time. With the 

 global movement of birds in the international trade, it is only a matter of when, not if, an exotic 

 disease outbreak will occur. Quarantine procedures should include testing for more diseases over 



