CITES rejects Namibia's proposal to ban discussion on regulating domestic ivory markets

An international panel on wildlife on Monday voted against Namibia's proposal to drop the discussion about the regulation of domestic markets of African elephants.

Fifty-seven parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) voted against the Namibia proposal, which was submitted to the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the CITES taking place in Johannesburg.

Namibia's proposal seeks to remove all CITES restrictions on regular and commercial trade in both government-owned and privately-owned ivory from Namibia and to remove all CITES restrictions on international commercial trade in live elephants from Namibia.

The rejection of the Namibian proposal was welcomed by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). Grace Gabriel, IFAW regional director for Asia, said she was excited to participate in the working group and to present evidence that closures of domestic ivory markets work.

She said IFAW has evidence demonstrating the positive impact of closing domestic ivory markets.

In 2011, elephant ivory and rhino horn were coveted as an investment vehicle in certain countries, pushing their price to an all-time high. Ivory sales volumes in the auction market reached 95 million U.S. dollars, a 170 percent increase from 2010.

Steven Broad, executive director of Traffic, a wildlife trade monitoring network, told Xinhua that they are concerned about the trafficking of wildlife species from Africa to Asia. He said they are against the blanket ban on the trade in general.

Broad said, "This was a procedural vote and the domestic trade is still open in the working group. Namibia wanted a precedent. We prefer to target specific markets which have been identified as a problem country than a general ban on domestic markets."

Meanwhile, Malawi and Mozambique joined Botswana and Angola in calling for closure of domestic ivory markets.

Namibia has about 22,711 elephants. Since 2011, over 230 elephants have been illegally killed in Namibia and 37 this year. The country has sold 32 live animals, 690 tusks, 11,255 kgs of tusks and 387 trophies between 2008 and 2014. Endit