STEVEN MANN, Cape Town | Tuesday 6.30pm.
ENVIRONMENTAL Affairs and Tourism Minister Valli Moosa on Tuesday defended South Africa’s proposals to amend the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) to enable it sell off stockpiled ivory, saying there is no evidence to suggest it will encourage poaching.
“We are not in favour of opening up free trade in ivory. We are also not in favour of elephants being killed so the ivory can be sold,” he said.
South Africa wants permission to sell about 30 tons of ivory being stored at the Kruger National Park to a single Japanese buyer. The matter is to be debated at the 11th Cites conference to be held in Nairobi next week.
Conservation groups have contested claims that a 1997 concession enabling Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe to sell off stockpiles ivory had not resulted in increased poaching.
Mossa accused some Western countries and conservation groups of holding the elitist view that African countries if left to their own devices would destroy the environment and did not know what they were doing when it came to conservation.
He said South Africa is reasonably confident of winning the support of two-thirds of the 135 signatories to Cites it needs to have its proposals accepted.
Moosa on Tuesday also named the new 13-member board of Satour, South Africa’s international tourism marketing arm, which will serve a three-year term.
It will be chaired by Transnet managing director Saki Macozoma, while Anglovaal chief executive Rick Menell will serve as his deputy.
Other appointees are film producer Anant Singh, Liz Westby-Nunn, the outgoing Satour chair and Anglo American executive director Michael Spicer.
Also named as a board member was Pearl Mashabela, the chair of Penta Publications, which recently hit the headlines when it was bailed out of trouble with a controversial loan from the finance department. The Democratic Party claimed the loan was illegal.