HONOLULU (AP) – Members of an worldwide environmental group are expected to vote on a proposal Saturday to urge leaders in every country to close domestic ivory markets that threaten elephants.
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HONOLULU (AP) An worldwide environmental group voted Saturday to call on every country to shut down domestic ivory markets that threaten elephants.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature planned to vote on the proposal Friday at the World Conservation Congress in Honolulu, but some members of the global group of government and nonprofit representatives didn’t want a ban, and the vote was delayed when they filed a complaint saying their concerns had not been heard.
“If these proposals are adopted by CITES”, says Weber, “it will comprehensively prohibit commercial sales of ivory for good, and hopefully halt the catastrophic decline of elephants”.
At the IUCN meeting, Japan and Namibia – which also have thriving domestic ivory markets – sought to soften the language of the motion by making 20 different amendments, but those efforts were rejected.
Welcoming the IUCN’s motion, Born Free Foundation’s President and CEO, Will Travers OBE, said: “The world’s foremost conservation body has taken a bold and hugely important step in efforts to save elephants from nearly certain extinction”. The worldwide trade in ivory has been banned since 1989 but in many countries, including the US, UK and China, domestic trade is still allowed for antiques. The United States prohibited domestic elephant ivory trade in July 2016 and France followed suit the following month. Many experts believe that domestic ivory markets help fuel poaching by stimulating demand and allowing traffickers a cover for their illegal imports and exports.
In addition, The Great Elephant Census, funded by Microsoft founder Paul Allen, and undertaken by a team of scientists and conservationists, including WCS’s Dr. Paul Elkan, Falk Grossmann, and other WCS field staff, working in cooperation with government wildlife departments, has now documented that savanna elephants have declined at a rate of 27,000 – or 8 percent – per year, with a total of 144,000 lost in less than a decade.
Elephants are also sensitive to temperature changes, placing them particularly at risk from climate change - a World Wildlife Fund assessment found that climate change could make elephants more susceptible to disease, as well as make it more challenging for the animals to find fresh water.
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Focus now moves to Johannesburg, where parties to CITES will debate a number of proposals relating to elephants, including a legally-binding resolution on the closure of domestic ivory markets.
“While China has not taken the final step needed to shut down its domestic ivory market, they have committed to close their market soon and inflict the largest blow to the ivory criminals”.
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The IUCN does not regulate the ivory trade, domestically or globally.
