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Category: China, Ivory, Trade, elephants, wildlife trade | Date: Oct 28 2008 | By: Maina

Today, 28 October 2008, Namibia opened bidding for the 9 tonnes of ivory stockpiles it wants to auction in the controversial CITES backed one-off sale. The media has been shut out of this auction. According to a report appearing in the Namibian, a national paper, The Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET) never made an official announcement about the international auction. Most people would wonder if the government is ashamed or it’s trying to hide something.

Tonnes of applications and requests by international and national media houses piled into the Ministry’s in boxes but nobody was going to bother. When asked on Monday, the Deputy Environment and Tourism Minister Leon Jooste told media representatives that “It is too late to change the Ministry’s strategy with regard to the ivory auction.”

Local and regional conservation NGOs will also not be let into the auction. A request by the southern Africa office of the International Association for Animal Welfare (IFAW) to be allowed observer status was curtly rejected some two weeks ago. “The [MET] official just flatly denied us the possibility,” Christina Pretorius, Programme Manager of IFAW Southern Africa, is quoted as having told The Namibian on Monday.

Botswana will sell it’s 44 tonnes on Friday 30 October while South Africa, with the largest sale of 51 tonnes, and ZIMBABWE, 4 tonnes, will follow suit on 2 and 5 November respectively. In total, a whooping 108 tonnes of ivory will enter the market. The effect of this massive influx of ivory in the Chinese and Japanese markets, according to most conservationists, will be a corresponding increase in poaching to affect the rest of Africa. Traffic, the trade monitoring body under CITES however maintains that there is no evidence to support these allegations. Whatever happened to taking precautions?

The southern Africa states participating in this one off sale of ivory stockpiles first approved - in principle - by CITES in 2002, made $ 5-million in the last one off sale some 9 years ago in 1999. This year, according to the BBC, they expect to make $ 30-million - quite an increase occasioned just by the entry of China into the fray. They say this money will go towards elephant conservation. Traffic says that the ivory will not leave China and Japan into other markets. The two governments have promised to ensure that that does not happen but that is another story. There is evidence - overwhelming evidence - that illegal ivory trade is still alive and far outsells the legal trade.

The wisdom of this sale is quite questionable. If elephants are still endangered in most African states, then there is no logic really to let the sale of ivory - with the potential of fanning poaching - to anyone. Inasmuch as the data that Traffic presented does not show any increase in illegal trade, the fact remains that illegal trade will not go away just because the stockpiles have been sold and $30-million is injected into conservation (and this - if the money does indeed end up in conservation - will be in states where elephant populations are already growing).

Moreover, reports from Zimbabwe indicate that a large percentage of the wildlife has been eaten by desperate country folk or hunted illegally by unscrupulous safari hunting companies as the country’s governance sunk into an abyss. How can anyone justify allowing Zimbabwe to sell ivory? Besides, who knows when South Africa, Namibia and Botswana would end up with a dysfunctional government resulting in massive poaching and - perhaps - eventual extinction of elephants?

The insertion that selling these stockpiles will help conservation is myopic. This sale will only keep demand for ivory alive. And when the southern states have no more ivory to sell, who will feed China’s growing hunger for ivory? Is it not the rest of Africa where elephants are not properly protected? Is it not poaching?

One Kevin C from Taipei commenting on the BBC article puts things rather candidly:

Sounds like It is also a very good idea to sell drug stockpiles in police office. It will reduce the market value and make it less profitable to smuggle and produce it underground.

You are always welcome to have your say. This is a matter that needs all your input. Tell us what you think.

Tags: auction, China, CITES, hunting, Ivory, ivory stockpiles, Japan, Namibia, poaching, southern Africa, wildlife trade, Zimbabwe