I am getting more and more despondent over all the news coming out of the CITES meeting allowing so much of the ivory to now be sold.

Everyone knows, there is always an upswing in poaching prior to the CITES meeting in the hopes that ivory will again be able to be sold. Now that CITES has given the go-ahead and allowed the sale, everyone and their brother will be out gunning for elephants (or poison arrowing or spearing) to obtain more ivory.

Go to Africa as much as you can in the next five years or so folks, because CITES has seen to it that most of the elephants will be gone in 15 - 20 years. Too bad there isn't open season on some of the CITES officials to see how they like being in the poachers eyesight!

Even if they find in a year's time that there is a huge increase in poaching due to this ruling, it is another two years before CITES meets again. In that period of time a good percentage of African elephants will be forever gone.

So very sad.

Jan, to be honest I am not sure about the effect. As stated in another post:

In 1997, CITES agreed to allow a one-time "experimental" export of ivory from Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe to Japan. The purpose of the experiment was to determine if it was possible to have a tightly controlled legal ivory trade without causing increased poaching and/or illegal trade.

It makes sense to me. There is so much ivory on stock that if it were sold it would cover the demand and make poaching unnecessary. If governmental stock was dumped on the market at low prices, it would ruin the market for poachers.

If it was so simple, I would be for the legal trade of ivory. I assume however that it isn't. If the ivory in governmental stock is confiscated from poachers, then the government becomes the legal trader of illegally poached ivory. If governments (or single representatives of it) can make money with poached ivory, it could actually encourage poaching in a larger, less transparent scale. Powerful criminals could co-operate with corrupt government officials to get the poached ivory legally onto the market.
No matter where you look you find corrupt government officials and laws have all kinds of holes and exceptions that allow the trade to continue. Trade will continue legally or illegally as long as there is a demand and the demand will always be there.

I just got an email from a world reknown conservationist. Among other things the note states:

Re CITES we didn't expect anything else because it is all about money and trade - in other words how to pretend to be concerned about endangered species, when in reality it is how to trade those remaining. It has sickened us for years and I'm afraid with China now calling the shots the future is very dire for elephants and particularly rhinos whose horns are now funding terrorism.

OK folks, please help me out.

Kenya and Mali are still working frantically on their motion next week to CITES to ban all sales of ivory for 20 years. Should they get enough support from other countries to pass this motion, what, if anything, will it do to CITES allowing the sale of ivory that they passed this week? Will it negate those sales or would the sales still be allowed since they were BEFORE the vote? Not knowing how CITES works, I am perplexed on this one.

Anyone have any understanding or guesses on this one?

Jan,
The recent approval by CITES of the sale of 60 tonns of ivory was a "follow-up" approval of a motion that had been passed and agreed to by member states back in 2002 or 2004 (can't remember exactly which without looking it up again). In other words, in 2002/04, CITES members agreed that Botswana, Namibia and South Africa could have a one-off sale of 60 tonns of Gov ivory stocks to Japan alone PROVIDED the selling countries met certain criteria that insured the ivory stock being sold was able to be controlled throughout the process. At that time, CITES members were not convinced that these countries had proper measures in place. They now do and hence the recent approval.

If the Kenya/Mali proposal gets approved, it will have no impact on that ruling.

Personally, i have my doubts that Kenya/Mali's proposal will be approved.

thanks bwanamich. It is as I also thought.

However, I find it laughable -

PROVIDED the selling countries met certain criteria that insured the ivory stock being sold was able to be controlled throughout the process. At that time, CITES members were not convinced that these countries had proper measures in place. They now do and hence the recent approval

I only wish I had a dollar for every time I've read "but all this ivory is from elephants that died a natural death".
What a crock of S--T. They must think people are awfully stupid to believe that. There is just no way that would be physically possible UNLESS there was another Tsavo event of thousands of starving elephants.

When a hunter in Tanz or southern Africa kills an elephant or rhino what happens to those tusks? I presume they aren't allowed to send them home. Does the ivory go into the government stockpile or do they just try to smuggle it in their suitcases as some politicians try to do.

Has anyone really started promoting "green hunting"? That is something I think even I might enjoy.