United Nations Radio

Ivory stockpiles worth over 15 million dollars were recently sold, to finance African elephant conservation efforts. The 102 tonnes of ivory was sold under supervision of CITES - that is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. UN Radio's Patrick Maigua has the details.

Four southern African countries, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe participated in the auction. The ivory sold was all from legal and government-owned stocks; most of it from elephants that had died of natural causes during the last 20 years or were culled before 1994 as part of a population control programme. The sales were unanimously authorized by the 172 CITES member States in July 2007. Jonathan Barzado from CITES says the sale was not an indication that ivory trade had reopened.

"The only countries that were authorised to buy ivory were Japan and China, after extensive studies of legislation that is in place in those countries, Japan and China, and they had to put in place not only legislation but controls to ensure that any ivory imported as a result of the sale would not be re-exported and that the domestic ivory trade would be well managed within the country."

This is the second time that controlled sale of ivory has taken place since the 1989 ban on commercial trading in ivory. The first sale was in 1999. CITES says there was no evidence that controlled sale of ivory had resulted in increased elephant poaching. Under the agreement reached by CITES in July 2007, the countries that sold the ivory are obliged to use the funds raised exclusively for elephant conservation and community development programmes within or adjacent to the elephant range.

Patrick Maigua UN Radio Geneva

(duration: 1'49")