CITES PLACES TEMPORARY BAN ON THE EXPORT OF LIVE ELEPHANTS FROM AFRICAN COUNTRIES
JOHANNESBURG - The ongoing Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites), in Panama, placed a temporary ban on live elephant exports from Africa and shut the door on the ivory trade.
The brief ban has compromised countries, such as Zimbabwe and Namibia, who have been trading in live elephants.
On March 6 this year, Namibia announced that 22 live, wild-caught elephants had been exported to the United Arab Emirates, in what it called a private transaction, amid an outcry by animal activists.
In 2019, Zimbabwe sold more than 90 elephants to China and Dubai. The government said the money raised would be used for conservation efforts.
Foundation Franz Weber, which has been working for the protection of African elephants since 1975, and is an observer at the Cites meeting, said: “The African countries will now enter into a dialogue to try to find common ground on the issue.”
The 18th Conference of the Parties voted in 2019 to restrict live elephant exports to conservation sites within the species’ natural range, except in exceptional cases.
At the time, it was agreed that exporting elephants to zoos across the world had a negative impact on conservation.
But Zimbabwe and Namibia took advantage of legal uncertainties and continued to capture wild elephants.
To address this lack of legal clarity that Namibia and Zimbabwe capitalised on, many members of the African Elephant Coalition, an association of more than 30 African nations, made a proposal at the Cites meeting.
The European Union, also at the Cites meeting, proposed to establish a dialogue between the AEC and those southern African countries who want to sell their elephants.
Zimbabwe went to the Cites meeting with a proposal to allow countries, with stockpiles of ivory, to be allowed to auction them.
But Kenya went there with another idea - to create a fund for countries with stockpiles to be compensated for burning the ivory. – NEWS24.