Ivory permits

SIR – Professor Twink Allen (Letters, December 28) argues for the continued use of permits for the sale of stockpiled “legal” ivory, mainly held in South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe.

The world came together in 1989 to ban the sale of ivory. Since then a number of sales of stockpiled ivory have been carried out with certificates to show it is “legal”. Yet at the time of these sales, there were welldocumented spikes in ivory prices as well as poaching. Moreover, there was a permit system before the 1989 ban – so why was the ban implemented?

It is hard to tell one ivory tusk from another, and hard to tell if it has an associated permit or came from an elephant before 1947. This is further complicated when the tusk is “wholesaled” in small pieces. Ivory poached after 1947 can be passed off as legal, with recycled or fake permits. Philip Godfrey

London SE21