Monday, April 07, 2008; Posted: 09:35 AM

Gaborone, Apr 07, 2008 (Mmegi/The Reporter/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX)

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) has given Botswana the go-ahead to sell 43.6 tonnes of ivory by the end of this year.

This is in line with what was agreed last year at The Hague. Information from the Botswana Ministry of Environment Wildlife and Tourism shows that the CITES secretariat in Gaborone gave the country the go-ahead after verifying the government ivory stock earmarked for sale.

"Among other things, they looked at the paper trail, data base and the physical ivory to establish its match," reads a statement from the ministry. The CITES secretariat established the authenticity of the ivory source in an exercise that lasted two days, says the ministry.
CITES mandates developing countries to generate monetary resources from the sale of ivory to fund conservation and help alleviate poverty.

The World Resources Institute says that allowing regulated and supervised trade of certain species will provide income for poor communities, while protecting the species. During the June meetings in The Hague, CITES members agreed to allow a one-time export of ivory from South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe. This was the second trade in ivory since the 1989 ban. The lifting of the first ban was in 1997 when CITES allowed Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe to export 50 tonnes to Japan. The ivory was from government stocks acquired from natural death or problem elephants. In 2004, CITES approved a second one-time trade in ivory, but it took three years for a southern African country to meet its conditions. The agreement requires any future one- off sale in ivory to be supervised through a rigorous control system. The sale could not occur before May 2004 to allow time for baseline data to be gathered on population and poaching levels and for the CITES secretariat to verify and register the existing stocks.

The CITES secretariat must confirm whether any potential buyers can effectively regulate their domestic ivory markets and become eligible for importing ivory. The controls are aimed at preventing illegal ivory from entering the market.

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