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LONDON: October 28th 2008. THE first official sales of ivory in southern Africa for nearly 10 years could open the floodgates to illegal poaching, the Environmental Investigation Agency, (EIA) warned today.

An ivory stockpile store. © EIA Poached elephants in Kenya. ©

The sale of stockpiled ivory from four African governments to China and Japan was approved at the UN's Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in July and takes place between 28th October and 6th November 2008.

EIA has more than 20 years experience tracking ivory smuggling and has grave concerns that these ivory sales will prompt an increase in elephants killed illegally elsewhere in Africa.

EIA Campaigns Director Julian Newman said: “CITES’ own comprehensive international monitoring system (EITIS) for tracking illegal elephant products, has shown a steady increase in ivory seizures – driven by a rising demand for ivory.

“This coupled with a lack of sufficient checks in importing countries such as China and instability in some African range states, could easily drag us back to the dark and bloody days of the 1980s when we were seeing around 200 elephants killed by poachers a week.”

Namibia, Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe have been given permission to sell more than 100 tonnes of ivory from stockpiles to buyers from China and Japan.

UK and EU governments were among 9 regional representatives of nations which supported China’s bid to buy up the ivory.

Appeals ignored

They ignored appeals from African nations not to increase pressures on their elephant populations already struggling with wars, instability, droughts and poverty by giving the ivory trade go-ahead.

And this decision was made despite EIA’s revelation in July that 110 tonnes of ivory - equivalent to the tusks of 11,000 elephants – had gone missing from China's government controlled ivory stockpiles - most likely through illegal sales.

EIA has argued that the missing ivory, exposed in a previously unpublished Chinese document, confirmed China's lack of control over its ivory trade, and gave clear grounds to refuse the country's request to trade legally in ivory for the first time since the 1989 international ivory ban was passed.

EIA’s research has highlighted serious flaws in both China’s and Japan’s enforcement systems, poor prosecution rates, inadequate registration and major loopholes in data collection on ivory.

Furthermore, there have been recent reports from African countries, particularly central and western states stating that poaching has risen sharply.

Also Kenyan wildlife rangers say that Chinese workers in the country have been implicated in many new cases. A number have been arrested on suspicion of smuggling ivory this year and Chinese nationals have been convicted of smuggling in 22 out of 37 African elephant range states.

The sheer scale of ivory smuggling to China, which makes it the number one destination, furthermore indicates involvement of organised crime syndicates.
ENDS
For further information, contact:

Julian Newman, EIA Campaigns Director
+44 (0) 207 354 79 76
Juliannewman@eia-international.org
For images, footage & press requests. Please contact:
Stuart Coles, EIA Press Office
stuartcoles@eia-international.org
+ 44 (0) 207 354 79 69

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