Laura MacInnis, PlanetArk 16 Jul 08;
GENEVA - China won the right at a UN wildlife meeting on Tuesday to import elephant ivory from Africa under strict conditions, a UN spokesman said.
Four countries -- Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe -- are permitted under a deal reached at The Hague last year to make one-off sales of registered ivory stocks.
"China was accepted as a trading partner to import ivory from the four authorised countries in southern Africa," said Juan Carlos Vasquez of CITES, or the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
To gain permission, Beijing had to prove it had the capacity to fight illegal domestic trade in ivory, which is used mainly in jewellery and carvings.
The CITES committee agreed that the four countries would be allowed to sell a combined total of 108 tonnes of the raw ivory, which comes from elephants that died from natural causes or were killed in population-management programmes.
"That is the total that the four can sell, and they can sell that ivory to Japan or to China," Vasquez said, noting CITES members briefly considered then set aside the idea of reviewing Zimbabwe's allocation given the recent political turmoil there.
Japan had been previously approved as an importer of ivory from those government stockpiles.
Populations of elephants, the world's largest land mammals, are under pressure in many parts of Africa from poaching, loss of habitats to farms and towns, pollution and climate change.
But Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa all say they have rising elephant populations, causing increasing conflicts with people in rural areas.
Under the CITES deal struck last year, the four are allowed to sell ivory from stockpiles that were registered on Jan. 31, 2007, and then are barred from seeking exports for nine years. The cash raised is used for conservation and local communities.
China has invested heavily in oil- and mineral-producing African countries in past years as its economic might has grown, and many Chinese companies are active on the continent.
Conservation groups WWF and TRAFFIC said China should pair its purchases with conservation awareness programmes to let Chinese nationals abroad know that it is illegal to buy and bring home ivory from Africa.
"The sight of ivory openly and illegally on sale in many African cities is likely to be a far more powerful encouragement to those contemplating poaching and smuggling, than a strictly controlled one-off sale," Susan Lieberman, director of WWF International's species programme, said in a statement.
"The only way to end elephant poaching is through an effective clampdown on illegal domestic ivory markets."
China gets ivory imports go-ahead
BBC News 15 Jul 08;
The UN has given China the green light to bid in a one-off sale of ivory.
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) voted in favour of China's request during a meeting being held in Geneva.
China joins Japan as approved buyers of government-owned ivory from South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
In 2007, Cites authorised the four nations to sell off stockpiles of legally held elephant ivory.
In order to gain approval, China had to present evidence to members of the Cites standing committee that it had put in place measures to tackle any illegal domestic sales of ivory.
"China has acted rather successfully against its own illegal domestic ivory market," said Tom Milliken, a director for Traffic, the wildlife trade monitoring network.
"Now China should help other countries to do the same, especially in central Africa where elephant poaching is rampant."
But Robbie Marsland, UK director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw), condemned the decision, saying it could prove disastrous for the world's elephant populations.
"We are deeply disappointed that Cites has backed China as an ivory buyer, a decision that plays Russian roulette with wild elephants.
"Allowing new ivory to be imported into China will stimulate demand and create a smokescreen for illegal ivory to be laundered into the legal market, to be sold in stores or online to Chinese citizens or foreigners."
However, Mr Milliken said Cites monitoring systems would track whether the sale would lead to an increase in illegal ivory.
"Following the last one-off ivory sale under CITES in 1999, it is encouraging to note that the illicit trade in ivory progressively declined over the next five years," he explained.
"We hope a similar result is achieved this time."
Under an agreement reached in 2007, Cites gave permission for the four nations to make a single sale of all government-owned stocks of ivory that have been registered by January of that year.
South Africa declared the largest amount, making 51 tonnes available, while Botswana's stockpile was almost 44 tonnes. The other two countries declared much smaller amounts; Namibia total was just under 10 tonnes, and Zimbabwe stockpile was almost four tonnes.
In March and April, the Cites secretariat conducted audits in each of the four nations to ensure the ivory had been properly registered and had been obtained legally.
The 2007 agreement also stipulated that once the one-off sale had been completed, no further sales from these countries would be considered during a "resting period" of nine years that would begin as soon as the new sales had been completed.
China allowed to buy ivory from Africa
Paul Eccleston, The Telegraph 15 Jul 08;
China is to be allowed to buy ivory from African countries in a move which has infuriated conservation groups.
They say granting China permission to import ivory amounted to a death sentence on African elephants because it would fuel demand and encourage poaching.
The UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meeting in Geneva voted in favour of China becoming a licensed importer. Britain was one of nine countries which supported the move.
It will allow China to bid for more than 100 tonnes of ivory stockpiled in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe through culling and natural deaths.
The African states say they need to sell the stockpiles to finance the conservation and management of their elephant populations but critics say it will give illegal traders the opportunity to launder poached ivory.
The trade in ivory was banned by CITES after poachers decimated African elephant populations by more than half - from 1.3m to 625,000 - in 10 years.
But the block on trade was partially lifted in 1999 when the four countries were allowed to auction tusks from elephants that had died of natural causes.
However only Japan was given partner status and allowed to buy ivory because it was deemed to have enough safeguards in place to prevent illegal trading.
Now, with a second auction sanctioned, China will be allowed to bid against Japan after CITES decided that she had sufficiently tightened trading rules.
China has the world's largest illegal ivory market, and is the single major destination for illegal ivory, mostly from elephants slaughtered in Africa.
The growing demand for ivory has driven up black market prices from $200 per kilo to $850 per kilo in the past four years providing a big financial incentive for poachers.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) said the amount of ivory on sale represented the deaths of more than 10,000 African elephants.
UK Director Robbie Marsland said: "We are deeply disappointed that CITES has backed China as an ivory buyer, a decision that plays Russian roulette with wild elephants.
"Allowing new ivory to be imported into China will stimulate demand and create a smokescreen for illegal ivory to be laundered into the legal market, to be sold in stores or online to Chinese citizens or foreigners."
IFAW said China's ivory trade controls and enforcement were woefully inadequate to police the ever-growing trade within its borders and that 110 tonnes of their legal stockpile has been "lost" indicating it was sold on illegal ivory markets.
Michael Wamithi, programme director for IFAW's global elephants programme, and former director of the Kenya Wildlife Service, said: "An estimated 20,000 elephants are slaughtered annually for the trade in their tusks.
"Many African elephant range states clearly do not have the capacity or resources to combat these massive attacks on their countries' wildlife heritage and the burgeoning markets in China are only fuelling these attacks."
The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) which exposes environmental crimes, said CITES had ignored appeals from other African nations not to increase pressures on their elephant populations which were already struggling with wars, instability, droughts and poverty.
EIA chairman Allan Thornton said: "We are stunned that the UK and EU have voted to risk the future of the world's elephant populations to garner favour with China.
"Responsibility for the poaching of 20,000 elephants in Africa each year will now lie with those who supported China obtaining legal ivory trade even though they continue to be the world's biggest destination for poached ivory."
