“We do recognize that Zimbabwe and Namibia’s elephants populations are in better shape than those elsewhere in Africa”, said Susan Lieberman, vice president for International Policy at the Wildlife Conservation Society.
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UNPA Chief Thanawat Amnajanan said the UNPA has been working with CITES for its Endangered Species stamp series for over 20 years.
The mother and businesswoman maintains that legalising the trade will only increase the demand.
This meeting comes against the backdrop of a surge in elephant and rhino poaching in recent years in Africa, which has raised the emotional, ecological and economic stakes in this round of big animal diplomacy.
This is the major decision making body for the United Nations organisation that regulates trade in endangered species of flora and fauna for 183 members.
A species that, due to demand for its horn, is being killed at a rate of almost three animals a day.
Added protection is also being sought for several species of pangolin, small, scaly animals found in Africa and Asia whose scales and meat are prized for their supposed medicinal value.
But it is the question of how to deal with the current poaching crisis in elephants that is likely to be top of the bill at this the 17th COP in the Convention’s 43 year history.
In a speech yesterday he said their numbers had shrunk from one million when he was born in 1982 to just 350,000 when his daughter arrived a year ago. Zimbabwe wants to sell its stockpile of elephant ivory in order to fund conservation efforts.
South Africa Environment Minister Edna Molewa told Reuters her country supports the motion to sell off stockpiles because ivory sales are needed to pay for the ecological and social costs of large elephant populations.
Namibia and Zimbabwe are seeking to liberalise the restrictions that see them prevented from selling ivory, even though the elephants in their countries are categorised as Appendix II, a lower level of protection that normally allows countries to trade in a species or its parts.
At the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) which opens in Johannesburg on Saturday 24 September, the European Union will not vote as individual member states but as a bloc which, according to a decision taken the European Commission on 1st July, means they will oppose a total ban on global trade in ivory.
It’s a pivotal time in the battle to protect elephants, said University of Washington biologist Sam Wasser, who uses DNA analysis to pinpoint the origins of poached elephant tusks.
The African elephant population has declined by 30 percent between 2007 and 2014, mostly as a result of poaching for the illegal ivory trade, according to a new study.
A minority of the Cites proposals are to loosen restrictions on the worldwide trade in species that have recovered from previously precarious positions.
When it first came into force in 1975, CITES only regulated a handful of timber species, but three years ago there were 600 types of timber listed under its appendices.
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The EU has been a major supporter of the CITES Convention and intends to continue to provide substantial financial support both to the activities of the Convention and to the protection of wildlife, in particular in Africa.
