South Africa, Botswana and Namibia have all met the conditions required for international trade in ivory, the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism said on Tuesday.
It said the process had been delayed due to lack of data from certain south-east Asian countries.
The issue was expected to be discussed at the meeting of the International Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) in Switzerland last week, but was not on the agenda because certain countries in south-east Asia had not yet provided baseline information on the monitoring of the illegal killing of elephants.
”It is a pity that the matter has to be moved once more. As South Africa, we are more than ready to engage in this exercise,” said Dr Pieter Botha, who attended the meeting on behalf of the department.
He said the next occasion for discussing ivory sales would be in October 2004, but if the South East Asian states had not yet produced the data, the issue would have to wait until this time next year.
However, he was confident the problem would be sorted out.
The three southern African states are wanting to sell stockpiles of ivory to approved international buyers.
This has been opposed by various other African countries, and several international wildlife organisations, because they believe it would result in increased ivory poaching: ”any form of legal trade provides cover for the trafficking of illegal ivory from threatened populations of wild elephants.” the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw) said in a statement.
In October 2002 Cites approved the sale of stockpiles of legally-acquired ivory but set certain conditions that had to be met before this could go forward.
Many of these conditions related to having appropriate regulatory and inventory measures in place, in both the exporter and importer states. The proceeds were also only to be used for elephant conservation, community conservation and development programmes.
”The three producer countries are fully in line with Cites,” said Botha.
Botha also said the programme had the support of many NGO’s in South Africa, and the majority of African countries.
”We have an amazing management system in this country through our sophisticated and effective inventory system.”
So far only Japan had expressed interest in trading in ivory, said Botha. – Sapa