SADC countries are proposing the reopening of ivory trade to countries certified as trading partners by the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species (Cites). But a conservation group warned this week that the region does not have its own house in order, as domestic sales of ivory continue to thrive.
Jason Bell, the Southern Africa director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw), made this statement during a media briefing highlighting the plight of African elephants ahead of the upcoming 14th conference of the parties to Cites, scheduled to take place in the Netherlands from June 3 to 15.
Bell said there were places within the SADC region where people could buy ivory openly on the street.
Botswana and Namibia have proposed that they be given unlimited rights to commercial trade in raw ivory, and that South Africa and Zimbabwe be accorded the same rights.
The two countries have also asked Cites to change the status of their elephant populations to reflect that they are not endangered, so opening the way for regulated trade in ivory.
Last year Cites suspended the sale of 60 tons of ivory stockpiles held by South Africa, Botswana and Namibia, which had been conditionally approved in 2002. Cites said that it could not determine whether the sale would encourage poaching, as it found the data from the Monitoring of Illegal Killing of Elephants (Mike) system ”incomplete, unreliable and based on flawed assumptions”.
South Africa had planned to sell 30 tons, Botswana 20 tons and Namibia 10 tons. According to Traffic, a wildlife conservation group, much of the ivory came from dead animals and tusks confiscated from poachers.
”Mike has not really delivered,” said Bell. ”All it has done is collect data on dead elephants from range states. We need a moratorium in order to determine the impact [of a sales ban].”
Other African countries such as Kenya and Mali, supported by Ghana and Togo, have proposed a 20-year moratorium on the ivory trade.
Ifaw believes that between 1989 and 1997 there was a dramatic decrease in the poaching of African elephants as the international trade in ivory was prohibited.
In 1997 Cites approved a down listing of elephant populations in Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe and a conditional sale of 50 tons of government stockpiles to Japan, which were exported in 1999.
Bell is adamant that this sale and the suspended 2002 sale have increased the demand for ivory. ”If we legalised the sale of ivory, we’d never be able to meet the demand of the markets, which now are mostly China and Japan,” he said. He added that the excuse used by pro-sale countries — that elephants were disrupting human settlements — was not valid, as no specific data revealed the extent of such conflicts.
”We know humans and animals interact. But we need to know whether elephant numbers are increasing conflict across specific ranges or if it is just in isolated sites. There are ways of keeping elephants at bay, like electric fencing or planting crops that elephants do not like to eat.”