Open letter to the governments of the member-states of the CITES Convention
The international ivory trade will recommence from three South-African countries to Japan as of March 1999 in accordance with the decision taken by the members of the CITES in Harare, Zimbabwe in June of 1997. The Standing Committee of the Convention must before guarantee that the eleven conditions for the resumption of trade are effectively fulfilled. Essentially, they are concerned with the reinforcement of inter-African cooperation and the control of elephant poaching and smuggling ivory. The situation will be examined in Geneva at the United Nations from the 8th to the 12th of February 1999. More than one hundred delegations of the member states will attend this meeting.
Peace for elephants
Harare
CITES is devoted to regulating international trade of animal and plant species and derivatives. Now, there is a split between consumers and a few African ivory range states producers : the first are, under the current trade status, reluctant to buy ivory – including Japan where 60 environmental groups signed-on to an open letter against the downlisting – but the producers want to sell ivory at all costs.
Through the regulation of international trade, CITES obviously has as its ultimate aim the long-term conservation of threatened species. In this case it is concerned with Loxodonta africana, and cannot consider changing its guidelines according to political and administrative borders. The African elephant population is clearly distinguished through biological continuity throughout the African continent. Though, elephants are said to be intelligent, they could not expected to understand that, for instance, along the northern Zambesi bank they are listed on Appendix I, while along the southern bank, they could be subject to trade. The three southern African proposals are not acceptable because elephants are a migratory species and are listed as such by the Bonn Convention on migratory species. Thus, they must form the subject of regional and interregional arrangements. African elephants could contribute to unifing African countries.
