A continent and a mammoth
The fifth meeting of the African elephant range states dialogue was convened from October 29 to October 31 in Santiago, Chile. The 24 countries in attendance got together to preempt discussion on the trade in African elephant in the 12th conference of parties (CoP-12) of the Convention on Illegal Trade in Endangered Species (cites).
Except for Kenya, all other countries decided to present proposals to sell ivory stocks of four countries. While Botswana wants to sell 20,000 kilogrammes (kg) of ivory stocks. Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe wish to sell 10,000 kg, 30,000 kg and 10,000 kg respectively.
However, Kenya's representative at cop has observed: "In absence of base line data about the effect of sale of ivory on elephant populations, we think this is not the time to allow this trade.' In fact, India and Kenya have proposed to move the African elephant too to Appendix I, which will disallow any trade in ivory. Kenya accuses the other elephant range states of having forced a consensus in a short period of three days and not giving it time to deliberate with India.
The Indian wildlife authorities have perpetually adopted the stand that trading in African ivory puts pressure on Asian elephant populations, as there is no way of safely verifying the difference between the two. It's another matter that Indian wildlife researchers and administrators have not been able to come up with any implementation plans despite ongoing research in the country.
| Ivory in southern African countries | |||
| Country | Proposed annual quota for sale (in kilogrammes) | Existing stocks (in kilogrammes) | Elephant population |
| Botswana | 4,000 | 33,000 | 120,000 |
| Namibia | 2,000 | 39,000 | 9,000 |
| South Africa | 2,000 | 32,000 | 13,000 |
| Zambia | 17,000 (one time) | 17,000 | 29,000 |
| Zimbabwe | 5,000 | 20,900 | 88,000 |
Source: Anon 2002, Fifth African elephant range states dialogue - Communiqu
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