IVORY SALE BID TO BOOST ELEPHANT CONSERVATION
CAPE TOWN: Zimbabwe has opened vaults containing 135 tonnes of ivory and rhino horn as it called for the guarded stockpile to be sold to fund the conservation of its growing and “dangerous” elephant population.
A “one-off sale” of the cache, seized from smugglers and poachers, and harvested from carcasses found in the country’s national parks, would raise $887m and all of the proceeds would go towards wildlife management, the government said.
Ivory sales have been banned since 1989 by Cites, the international body that monitors endangered species.
The Zimbabwean government has warned that it may resort to culling its 100,000-strong elephant population, which it claimed is double the capacity of its overwhelmed parks.
“Where do we get the money to look after the resources?” asked Fulton Mangwanya, head of the parks and wildlife agency, as he showed the towering piles of ivory to a group of visiting ambassadors.
Lockdowns during the pandemic and bans on international travel have hammered Zimbabwe’s tourism industry, the parks chief said.