Baraza

To understand the epic battle for the elephant that is coming up in 2 months, when African Elephant range states lock horns in Doha, Qatar, to contest for amendments to CITES Appendix I and Appendix II, one must understand what is in the proposals submitted by both sides of the ivory trade divide.

On the one hand is the anti-trade range states consisting of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Mali and Sierra Leone. On the other hand, each with it’s own proposal is Zambia and Tanzania, who want to be allowed to sell their ivory stockpiles come the March 13-25 Doha   meeting – the 15th CITES  Conference of Parties (CoP15). Both sides have sent their proposals to the CITES secretariat and the secretariat has generously (or is it by requirement) posted the proposals on their website. The southern African states of Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and kingpin South Africa are silent in this one. After all, they already sold their stockpiles.

The anti-trade block has renewed the Kenya/Mali proposal made in 2007 for a 20 year moratorium on the trade in ivory, including one-off sales. This moratorium in the language of the proposals is presented as an amendment to both apendices by including an annotation regarding ALL populations of Loxodonta africana, as follows:

“No further proposals concerning trade in African elephant ivory, including proposals to downlist elephant populations from Appendix I to Appendix II, shall be submitted to the Conference of the Parties for the period from CoP14 and ending twenty years from the date of the single sale of ivory that took place in November 2008. Following this twenty year resting period, any elephant proposals shall be dealt with in accordance with Decisions 14.77 and 14.78.”

This change should be accompanied by the deletion of two paragraphs from the last meetings resolutions. One on the elephants of Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe that says:

“h) no further proposals to allow trade in elephant ivory from populations already in Appendix II shall be submitted to the Conference of the Parties for the period from CoP14 and ending nine years from the date of the single sale of ivory that is to take place in accordance with provisions in paragraphs g)i), g) ii), g) iii), g) vi) and g) vii). In addition such further proposals shall be dealt with in accordance with Decisions 14.77 and 14.78.”

and another one concerning the elephants of Namibia and Zimbabwe allowing

f) trade in individually marked and certified ekipas incorporated in finished jewellery for non-commercial purposes for Namibia and ivory carvings for non-commercial purposes for Zimbabwe;

Ekipas are traditional Namibian ivory carvings.

Tanzania which has the second largest population of eleohants in the continent (136,753) has proposed to be allowed to trade its ivory stockpiles by transfer of their elephant population from Appendix I to Appendix II  with an annotation that says:

“for the exclusive purpose of the following:
a)  trade in hunting trophies for non-commercial purposes;
b)  trade in registered raw ivory (whole tusks and pieces) subject to the following

They therefore directly ask for a one off sale of 89,848.74 kg of ivory from registered government-owned stocks, originating in Tanzania (excluding seized ivory and ivory of unknown origin) to registered buyers – which at the last CITES meeting included only Japan and China. They insist that they will not sell the ivory until the CITES Secretariat has verified the stocks and ‘assure’ the secretatriat that “the proceeds of the trade are used exclusively for elephant conservation, community conservation and development programmes within or adjacent to the elephant range in Tanzania”

Tanzania doesnt stop there. In addition to saying that they will not ask for more trade in the next 6 years after their proposed sale (which means they may ask at the end of that period), they also ask to be allowed to trade in raw hide and to sell live animals to “appropriate and acceptable destinations”.

Zambia on the other hand with a population of only 27,000 animals (population smaller than Kenya’s) wants more or less what Tanzania wants: its population moved from Appendix I to Appendix II so that they can trade in hunting trophies for non-commercial purposes, live animals, raw hides and trade in registered raw ivory. For the latter item, the Zambians propose a one-off sale of  21,692.23 kg as ivory from registered government-owned stocks, originating in the country.

So that is the long and short of it. Zambia and Tanzania clamoring for an opportunity to sell a total of 111,540.97 kg of ivory and the Kenya led block gunning for a 20 year moratorium.