Nation may leave pact to sell ivory stockpile
Zimbabwe may consider withdrawing from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species because the organization won’t allow it to sell its ivory stockpile.
The southern African nation with the world’s second-largest population of elephants has a stockpile of tusks worth an estimated $300 million and needs the revenue, Fulton Mangwanya, director general of the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, said Monday in the capital, Harare.
While CITES has banned international ivory sales to curb poaching, frustration is growing over the fact that “other countries are prescribing how we should handle our animals,” Mangwanya told a parliamentary committee on environment and tourism. Withdrawing from CITES would have the support of neighbors Botswana, Zambia and Namibia, which also have large elephant populations, he said.
Botswana last month lifted a hunting ban on wildlife because it says it has too many elephants, which destroy crops and sometimes kill people. — Bloomberg News
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