MONDAY, 1.00PM
ZIMBABWE has threatened to sell off ivory stockpiles in contravention of the ban on trade in elephant products if the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species votes against its proposal to legalise ivory sales.
Environment minister Chen Chimutengwende was quoted in the Herald newspaper at the weekend as saying that Cites ”will have made itself irrelevant to us” if it refuses to allow Zimbabwe to sell its ivory stocks to Japan.
Zimbabwe, with Botswana and Namibia, and with support from the 12 Southern African Development Community member states, has proposed that Cites, currently holding its biennial summit in Harare, downlists from Appendix 1, which bans all trade, to Appendix 2, which allows controlled trade. A compromise proposal under which the elephant would be downlisted but with a zero quota for international sales of ivory would also be ”totally unacceptable to us”, Chimutengwende said.
Chimutengwende accused some opponents of the downlisting of being ”just racist.” He said they ”do not like the urbanisation or development of Africa because they like Africa to be one big zoo where they will just come as tourists and see poor blacks practising their traditions and living with wild animals.”
MONDAY, 3.00PM
Chimutengwende has since retracted his statement, saying the government has not yet made a decision on the matter. ”That is not the official position of the government,” Chimutengwende said, blaming the government’s Herald newspaper for distorting his remarks.
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