South Africa to seek permission to sell ivory
11/9/99
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Title: South Africa to seek permission to sell ivory
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: November 9, 1999
Byline: Ed Stoddard
JOHANNESBURG - South Africa said yesterday it would seek permission
to hold a one-off auction of elephant tusks and hides from
the Kruger National Park - a move sure to draw fire from animal
rights activists.
The South African application will be made to the Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) when it holds a
conference in Nairobi early next year.
"It is a very limited application that only applies to tusks and
hides from the Kruger Park. These tusks are well-indexed and we
know their origins," Valli Moosa, South Africa's Minister of
Environmental Affairs and Tourism, told Reuters.
"All the funds will be put directly back into conservation," he
added.
South Africa will also propose that African elephants be downgraded
from CITES appendix 1, which forbids all traffic or trade in products
from an animal, to appendix II, which allows limited or controlled
trade.
Earlier this year, South Africa's neighbours Namibia, Zimbabwe and
Botswana held one-off sales of their existing ivory stockpiles.
Revenue raised from the sales has been ploughed back into
conservation projects, leading wildlife officials in all three
countries to hail the auction scheme as a success.
But animal rights activists and other countries, notably Kenya,
maintain that the resumption of ivory sales after a 10-year ban has
sparked poaching outside the southern African region and poses a
threat to elephant populations in both Africa and Asia.
In late July, Kenya seized 350 kg (770 lb) of illicit ivory, its
largest haul in 10 years.
In the decade before the ivory sales ban was imposed in 1989,
Africa's elephant population plummeted from an estimated 1.3
million to 600,000. Conservationists credit the ban with stemming the
slaughter.
Defenders of the sales argue the money raised is needed for projects
aimed at conservation and the reduction of rural poverty and say it
is almost impossible for poachers to mix dirty ivory on the market
with new, legal supplies.
South Africa's Environmental Affairs and Tourism Ministry said in a
statement it hoped to sell about 28 tonnes of ivory worth an
estimated 16.8 million rand ($2.75 million). It also wants to sell
about nine million rand worth of hides.
The statement said that, if CITES agreed, the income from the sales
would be used to research a new elephant management programme in
Kruger, increase the monitoring of illegal hunting and create
protected areas to relocate Kruger elephants in parts of the animal's
former range.
The ministry said Kruger's elephant population was currently 9,152,
while the park's ideal population was about 7,000. ($=6.120 rand).