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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: November 2006

CITES suspends ivory trade permits

 

GENEVA--The Secretariat of the United Nations-administered Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species on October 5, 2006 suspended the permission granted in 2002 to allow South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia to export elephant ivory.

South Africa was to have been permitted to sell 30 metric tons of ivory, Botswana 20 metric tons, and Namibia 10 metric tons, "on condition," the U.N. News Service explained, "that the Monitoring of Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) system establish up-to-date and comprehensive baseline data on poaching and population levels. Today's meeting of the CITES Standing Committee determined that this condition has not yet been satisfied."

Requests from these and other African nations for annual ivory quotes were rejected by the triennial CITES Conference of Parties in 2004.

Zimbabwe, unsuccessful in many previous attempts to win an ivory export quota from CITES, positioned itself for another try in July 2006 by suspending domestic ivory sales and rounding up 285 alleged poachers. The poachers were, however, charged with unlawfully killing kudus, impalas, waterbucks, warthogs, and fish.

The Zimbabwean government-controlled Harare Herald on October 18 reported that "Two suspected poachers were arrested while 22 elephant tusks were recovered at Chizarira National Park in Gokwe, after a group of suspected Zambian poachers killed 11 elephants. The poachers exchanged gunfire with Zimbabwean security officers," the Herald said.

But Angus Shaw of Associated Press on the same day reported from Harare about allegations of "disgruntled and underpaid rangers profiteering on meat and illegal ivory," and recounted a recent incident described by the independently funded Zimbabwean Conservation Task Force in which rangers shot five elephants. One of the elephants was believed to have killed a safari park caretaker near the Zambian border.