By Katherine Groff
The United Nations decided Oct. 5 that more than 60 metric tons of stockpiled elephant ivory from Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe will not be sold in trade to Japan—at least for now.
The United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora Standing Committee postponed the decision to allow the ivory sale, which was approved in 2002 on the conditions that, before the sale reliable data on elephant poaching be collected, and suitable ivory trade control systems be in place in proposed importing countries.
The committee determined that neither condition had been met. It will reconsider the proposal again at the next committee meeting in June 2007.
Humane Society International and partner organizations in the Species Survival Network appealed to the meeting participants to not allow the trade.
"Uncontrolled illegal ivory trade and elephant poaching persist in both Africa and Asia. History has shown that adding legal ivory to the market without airtight safeguards and accurate, close monitoring of elephant populations will only fuel more illegal trade," HSI representative Ronald Orenstein said at the meeting.
Allowing Trade Encourages Poaching and Black Market Sales
The African elephant faces a high risk of extinction in the wild. In the 1980s, poaching for ivory cut African elephant populations in half, and when CITES banned the international trade in ivory in 1989, an estimated 87 percent of ivory in legal trade was from poached elephants.
In 1999, CITES allowed and supervised a single shipment of African ivory to Japan. In the years following a the shipment, the amount of illegal ivory seized worldwide rose sharply, indicating that the shipment stimulated illegal ivory trade.
"In the last two years alone, the tusks of nearly 5,000 elephants have been intercepted in illegal trade, and bloodied elephant carcasses with their faces carved off and tusks removed have been discovered in Africa as well as Asia," said Teresa Telecky, Ph.D., HSI program director for wildlife trade. "A decision to allow ivory trade would have been terrible news for vulnerable elephant populations and would have sent the wrong message to the international community—that profit for a few wins out over the conservation. The ivory trade must end completely and without exception, as many African nations have demanded."
Concerns Over Japan as Future Trading Partner
The committee denied the one-time trade to Japan largely because the "Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants," or MIKE, project failed to collect sufficient poaching data. Both Japan and China had bid to buy the ivory, but the committee rejected China. Despite serious concerns involving ivory trade controls in both countries and increases in ivory smuggling worldwide, the committee approved Japan as a trading partner for any future trade.
