Legal ivory trade resumption up for UN debate

A call to resume the legal ivory trade for the first time in nearly a quarter-century as one means of fighting the recent rise in elephant poaching in Africa was expected to dominate the debate at a U.N. conservation meeting that began Monday.

The proposal was put forward in a report commissioned by the 175-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, a treaty overseen by the UN Environment Program in Geneva. It would set up a centralized system to allow for the sale of ivory from elephants that either died naturally or as a result of trophy hunting, or were considered a threat or culled for ecological reasons.

This is the first time such a proposal has been made since a global ban on ivory went into effect in 1989. That ban halted widespread poaching but it has steadily worsened since 2004 amid Asian demand for ivory chopsticks, statues and jewelry.

"Given the present rise in illegal killing of elephants in West, Central and East Africa, it is clear that current measures are not containing the present upsurge in the illegal trade in ivory," the report concludes. "The tendency to ascribe this increase to the sale of stockpiled ivory in 2008 diverts attention away from the far more serious problems relating to the inability of African countries to invest in protecting their elephants —I thinjk an observation that begs the question of what incentives are there for them to do so?"

The proposal — which would still need to be voted on at the CITES meeting next year in Bangkok— was expected to set off a fierce debate especially among African delegates.

Southern African countries, where the majority of elephants are, want some form of legal trade to help pay for their conservation efforts and sell off already growing ivory stocks. Central and East African countries have in the past opposed any legal trade, fearing it will undermine conservation efforts and further bolster the illegal trade.

Environmentalists, too, have come out against the proposal because they argue that the reasons behind it — that legal trade would help reduce ivory prices, and thus demand — remain unproven.

A proposal for one-off sales by Tanzania and Zambia at the 2010 CITES meeting in Doha was defeated.

Mary Rice, executive director of the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency, said her research advocacy group, which has campaigned against the illegal trade for two decades, "remains deeply concerned that any more 'legal' sales — or discussion of 'legal' sales — of ivory will further stimulate the ivory market, supporting the perception that international trade has resumed and increasing demand for illegal ivory."

The rise in rhino poaching will also be on the agenda with several measures to tackle the illegal hunting, mostly in South Africa. Among the issues will how better regulate the trophy hunting trade and making greater use of DNA technologies to trace the horns that are seized to help convict the poachers and traffickers.

A report by the advocacy group WWF International released at the Geneva meeting found that Vietnam was "the major destination" for rhino horns trafficked from South Africa, where 448 rhinos were poached last year.

In Asia, rhino horn can fetch the equivalent of US street values for cocaine. It is crushed and consumed by people in Asia who believe — wrongly, doctors say — that it can cure diseases including cancer, fever and even hangovers. (nvn)