As predicted in my last post, it’s victory for conservationists world wide as CITES today voted no the proposal presented by Tanzania to weaken the 21-year ban on ivory sales. Many countries do not think that Tanzania can manage to sell ivory without it leading to a dramatic upsurge in elephant killings, after all, the country has been unable to control illicit trade in ivory and elephant poaching. Tanzania had been hoping to win the hearts and minds of the European countries, they did approve “one off sales” of ivory twice before! (why do they keep calling them one off when they obviously plan to repeat them?)
Sigh of relief
While CITES decision in Doha haven’t all been good for endangered species (eg. rejection of proposal to list blue fin Tuna), we are hoping that this decision reflects that countries are serious about the threats facing African and Asian elephants.
While we rejoice the decision to reject Tanzania’s proposal, Zambia’s is still under negotiation and a decision is expected later today. We all have our fingers crossed.
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one wonders why, with these bans in place for many years now, threatened species numbers continue to decline – it certainly allows the black marketeers and the smugglers a fine monopoly….. and of course keeps the price roof high – which is good for their business… I am suggesting we need to look at alternative solutions as the old ones are not working…
I have all my fingers and toes crossed for a positive Zambia outcome.
I’m so glad to see that the proposal for sale has been rejected. I agree with the author; one-off means nothing when it will be repeated. Either there is a ban or there isn’t.
The solution to the problem isn’t to end the monopoly by opening legal sales. Law enforcement doesn’t sell seized weapons or drugs to fund their work. That would end the monopoly and possible lower the market price, but to what end?
What keeps the demand and price high is the desire to own and/or wear a chunk of a dead animal purely for decorative purpose. The market for ivory will collapse when the desirability goes away. Wearing and using ivory must be seen as repulsive, not fashionable.
When the ban first went into effect in 1990,the price of ivory dropped to roughly 2 USD per kg – ivory prices didn’t rise to pre-ban levels and above until after discussion at the CITES meetings of allowing legal ivory sales – trade bans in conjucntion with educational campaigns re source of ivory, etc. have worked in the past and can work again – letting most consumers know what happens when they buy ivory should be enough to slow the market cown considerably
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