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.
