WEDNESDAY, 3.00PM
ZAMBIA has switched sides on the ivory trade ban, announcing that it will support the continued ban to prevent opening the “floodgates of senseless elephant slaughter”. For the past eight years, Zambia has urged a lifting of the ban, along with Zimbabwe, Namibia and Botswana, which are all vociferous proponents of a renewed ivory trade.
Tourism minister Amusaa Mwanamwambwa said Zambia has reversed a position first adopted in 1989 against the listing of the African elephant as an endangered species, and will vote for a continued ban on the ivory trade at the tenth Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) conference next month in Harare. Mwanamwambwa said that the decision was taken after the government noted a sharp decline in Zambia’s elephant population from about 250,000 in the early 1960s to 100,000 by 1975 and between 22,000 and 24,000 at present. *
13