Africa: 11 Countries Back 20-Year Ban On Ivory Trade

The East African Standard (Nairobi)

24 May 2007
Posted to the web 23 May 2007

James Ratemo
Nairobi

Kenya is among 11 African countries that have endorsed a 20-year ban on ivory trade.

Out of the 12 countries attending a consultative meeting in Nairobi, only Uganda did not endorse the declaration.


Mali, Togo, Cote D'Ivoire, Burundi, Rwanda, Nigeria, Southern Sudan, Sierra Leone, Congo Brazzaville and Chad supported the freeze submitted by Kenya and Mali to the 14th Conference of Parties to CITES, ahead of the 7th Dialogue Meeting of the African Elephant Range States scheduled for May 30, to June 1, at the Hague Netherlands.

The Ugandan delegates needed to further consult different arms of the Government before they take a stand.

The Democratic Republic of Congo and Ghana did not attend the meeting but support the proposal.

"Elephants are highly migratory; many populations are shared. Ivory trade and market forces driving it are international.

"Decisions in one state can affect another, hence a cooperative, regional approach," the declaration said in part.

Since time was required for the most threatened populations to regain their viability, the delegates argued that a 20-year ban would curb the illegal ivory trade thus protect the endangered elephants.

Adding to the debate, International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) also warned against re-introducing ivory trade in Africa, saying elephants were endangered.


To send the strong message, IFAW sent a life-size elephant dummy to the CITES Conference in The Hague, Netherlands.

Dubbed 'Mjumbe' (ambassador) the dummy made from confiscated bare wire snares was unveiled last week by Kenya's Tourism and Wildlife minister, Mr Morris Dzoro.

Although some southern Africa range States say they have "too many" elephants, estimates by an African Elephant Status Report, 2007, put the continental elephant population at between 472,269 and 689,653, approximately 10-20 per cent what it was in the 1930s and 1940s.

Do any of those countries habe healthy elephnt populations?

That is the whole irony! These 11 states should request a total ban on ivory trade IN THEIR COUNTRIES because of their inability to control the poaching issue. Not impose a blanket ban across all elephant range states.

You can read about Kenya and Mali's porposal with comments and suggestions from the CITES secretariat on their website. Quite interesting! It does not amount to a ban on elephant hunting at all.

You can also read Namibia, Bots and RSA's proposals and arguments against and for.

quote:

The Ugandan delegates needed to further consult different arms of the Government before they take a stand.

That means they are waiting for IFAW to propose a "healthy $$$$ package" to side with Kenya/Mali or they won't. Interestingly, Uganda has requested to downlist their leopard populations to App. II and allow them to be hunted (IIRC).

BwanaMich,

Can you let us have links to the appropriate web pages please? Thanks

HI Steve,
This is the CITES web site. Towards the bottom there is some green text scrolling across with the COP14 docs. You need to click that.

http://www.cites.org

Thanks buddy...

Reads to me like they want to prevent the shipping and sale of Elephant products and nothing else...... where all this hysteria about the banning of Elephant hunting comes from I simply don't know....... even if they did want to ban Elephant hunting, it's not in their power to do so. CITES is a purely voluntary association and it has no power whatsoever to make any individual country introduce any legislation they don't want to. Therefore they cannot ban elephant or any other kind of hunting in any country, all they can do is persuade the member nations not to allow the import of those named products from any or all named countries........... Which is what I said when this subject originally came up.

Even if the ban is introduced and I doubt it will be, I'm sure that Zimbabwe will just offer non exportable Elephant hunts as an alternative.

PS. - God but how I hate that ridiculous CITES website...... must have been designed by a lunatic.

Cites today have so far moved from their original agenda that it useless in his current form and need a urgent clean up or this failing disbanding of the organization.

This is idiotic and totally counterproductive if the stockpile of ivory and hides get released (sold) in to the market the demand will be reduced , prices will come down and this will lead to lower intensive for poachers and the illegal trade. Combine this with better law enforcement and regulated / monitored trade from the money received for the sales of the existing stockpile this can only help conservation.
It is amazing that the countries lobbying for a total ban of trade in elephant products are the ones that failed miserably for the last decades to protect their own elephants. All that these countries proved is their failure to look after their own natural resources!
Now these countries, in the typical fashion, blaming others for their incompetence and corruption to make them look good to the rest of the world.
What I find far more shocking how the world swallows the whole B…sh t.

That hunters can relax and it will not affect sport hunting is wishfully thinking how could be any one believe it will stop there??
The next thing in line is the hunting of elephants, and yes, governments will permit the hunting of elephants without exporting the trophy’s till their convinced by political pressure, sanctions or just paid off to stop all hunting. But people a conditioned by governments and NGO’s not to think for themselves anymore but swallow whatever they get told. Off cause not the whole lot at once only a bit at the time the same way personal rights get chipped away every day a little, all for the good of mankind?
It is time to wake up it might not be convenient and it will not be comfortable.

How many NGO’s are in existence? How many billion of $ they own? On what do they spending the money? What results they archiving. And what are they final agendas? You will be in for a shock.

These are the important question to ask! “Conservation†is big big business today!
And it got very little to do with conservation!

IMO Africa would be much better of if all NGO’s would leave today take the money with them.

Yes there are few productive aid / NGO’s but it would be better to have none in Africa then all of them.

According to Kenia (which wildlife population has decreased by two thirds since commercial hunting was banned) and all the other extremist greenies, all eco systems can disappear just as long as the freekin elephants survive!!

The funny part is that the elephant will also eventually all die of starvation!!!

IDIOTS!!