Kenya Wins Backing for Extending Ivory Trade Ban

If adopted, the proposal will bind all parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to outlaw trade in ivory a move that Tanzania and Zambia have opposed.

Reports from the six-days of meeting of AEC in Brussels indicate that Mali, Benin, Central African Republic, Chad, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Togo, Republic of Congo and Government of Southern Sudan backed Kenya’s proposal to maintain the strongest possible international moratorium on trade in ivory.

"No proposals for trade in ivory should be considered until COP18 in 2019. Proposals from Tanzania and Zambia should therefore be withdrawn," a statement issued after the meeting chaired by Mali and Kenya said.

The position is a huge blow to efforts by the Tanzania and Zambia governments that had last November asked the CITES secretariat to remove the African elephant, Loxodonta africana, from the list of animals facing extinction (Appendix I) to Appendix II. That move would effectively have meant that trade in ivory and elephants would not be banned but controlled.

Trade in species facing extinction is allowed under exceptional circumstances while that involving species in the second tier is managed to avoid utilisation that can endanger their survival. 

Source: Allafrica