Ivory trade vote exposes divisions on saving elephant

The global conference that governs wildlife trade voted Monday against strengthening the ban on ivory sales, exposing bitter divisions among African countries and experts over elephant conservation. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) rejected a proposal to include all African elephants in its highest category of protection, which bans trade in species facing extinction.
A coalition of 29 African countries - led by Kenya and Benin - had pressed for African elephants to be put in the CITES "Appendix I" category. But South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe rejected the proposal, saying they should continue to be excluded from Appendix I as they have stable or growing elephant populations. "This is a tragedy for elephants," said Kelvin Alie, programme director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).
"At a time when we are seeing such a dramatic increase in the slaughter of elephants for ivory, now was the time for the global community to step up and say 'no more'." But many experts and delegates at the CITES conference in Johannesburg believed the proposal would have fuelled the illegal market. The proposal to add the four southern African elephant populations to Appendix I could also have led to some countries such as Namibia withdrawing from the CITES treaty, inadvertently opening up "a back door to legal international trade", said Ginette Hemley, head of the WWF delegation.
"African elephants are in steep decline across much of the continent due to poaching for their ivory, and opening up any legal trade in ivory would have complicated efforts to conserve them." Earlier CITES had voted against proposals by Namibia and Zimbabwe to be allowed to sell off their stockpiles accrued from natural deaths and poaching seizures to fund projects in communities living close to elephants.
"None of these proposals would have offered elephant populations any greater protection from the poachers," Hemley added, urging nations to concentrate on closing domestic ivory markets and combating the illegal international trade. International trade in ivory has been banned since 1989, but legal domestic markets have continued in some countries, and CITES has allowed sales of African ivory stockpiles to Japan and China in 1999 and 2008. "We are happy that we have successfully blocked the proposal by Kenya and coalition countries," Zimbabwe environment minister Oppah Muchinguri told AFP.