European ban hurts African export industry
Mali trade flitting away as ban looms
For these caged Senegalese parrots, chirping away their morning in captivity, a European ban to combat an Asian virus may mean freedom or starvation.
In late October, a quarantined parrot from South America died in the United Kingdom from H51N strain of the avian bird influenza, prompting the European Union to impose a blanket prohibition on the importation of all exotic birds.
The temporary ban has shuttered the bird export industry in some of Africa’s poorest countries, forcing traders here in Bamako to choose between feeding birds they might never sell, or letting their investment fly away.
The temporary ban was set to expire Jan. 31, and European experts were to meet today to discuss extending it. “A permanent ban is not foreseen for the moment,” Haravgi-Nina Papadoulaki, a European Commission press officer, said this week.
Along the banks of the Niger River, the birds are so thick that dozens can be captured in a morning with nothing more than a simple net and the patience and quick wrists of men who have been catching birds for several generations.
Wending its way from a coastal jungle to a fertile savannah and finally to the Sahara before dipping south again, the Niger River makes Mali one of the most bio-diverse and bird-rich countries in Africa.
Mary Crickmore, a development officer with the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee in Bamako, said the import ban had an immediate impact on the livelihood of both the urban exporters and the men in the field who catch the birds.
“From a development standpoint, you never want to do something this abrupt. There’s a ripple effect, and all their families are hurt,” she said.
However, as an active member of the African Bird Club who has identified over 500 birds in Mali, she said she supported the ban, although she doubted the trade had much effect on the bird population.