A renewed proposal to permit limited international trade in stockpiled elephant ivory by South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, in which CITES stands accused of acting as an inhibitor and not an enabler of progress, has been rejected.
The 19th Conference of the Parties (CoP19) to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), convening presently in Panama, reiterated its position that under CITES, “all international trade in ivory is banned”.
The proposal, sponsored by Zimbabwe, points says although the four southern African States host a majority of the world’s elephants in healthy populations, sustaining this conservation success is expensive.
“Very little in CITES recognises or supports any of this enormous achievement or serves to assist countries with large elephant populations to continue protecting them…” the proposal says.
“CITES has acted as an inhibitor and not an enabler of progress.
“The Conference of the Parties has repeatedly discounted the importance of the Southern African elephant population and its conservation needs against other regions in Africa.”
The proposal added that it was time to remove the anomaly of having 256 000 elephants on Appendix II being treated as if they are on Appendix I, against the wishes of the people who own them and who have the most to lose or gain from them.
“How the playing field is level when States with little or no interest in iconic species can overrule those responsible for conserving and living with those species,” said Eugene Lapointe , who is coordinating the activities of several pro-sustainable organisations in Panama, the CITES Secretariat leaves as an exercise for the reader.
The ivory trade decision once again demonstrates that CoP19 is not willing to reflect on the threat made by Tanzania, on behalf of the 16 members of SADC, to withdraw from the Convention if the interests of range States are routinely ignored. – The Herald
