The Zambian Government intends to sell over 27,00 Kilograms of legally acquired elephant ivory.
The Government further wants to dispose of around 10,000 Kilogrammes of illegally acquired ivory by destruction.
The Government hopes the two measures will help raise funds for conservation and create storage space for legal ivory.
According to Ministry of Tourism and Arts sources, Government is hoping that that the down listing of the country’s elephant population will enable Zambia sell legal ivory.
In order to do that, the Government would need approval from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora through the Conference of Parties (CoP).
CITES is an international agreement between governments that aims to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival.
The next CITES CoP will be hosted by Sri Lanka in 2019.
Elephant ivory cannot be traded internationally due to the international ban on ivory trade imposed by the CITES since 1989.
Zambia had unsuccessfully attempted to convince CITES to allow it to sell its ivory in 2002 and 2010.
The Ministry is planning to lobby for support by arguing that maintaining the status quo will mean that the country’s ivory stockpile will continue to increase while storage space will continue to be a challenge.
Government will need to convince the CoP that Zambia’s elephant population is stable through consistent aerial surveys and a reduction in poaching.
It is however expected that the decision will be opposed by conservation groups.
Please just burn all of it…dont be like the greedy South Africans!!
It is a good idea to raise the funds for further conservation programs ….. except the PF cannot be trusted ! Therefore I agree burn the tusks
They should be burnt, that money won’t be used for the reasons they are giving…it’s true PF, can’t be trusted.
@ Jay Jay, Shameless and, Tex Mex if it wasn’t for the issue of trust that if sold the money realized from the sale would 100% be accounted for under the authority benefitting conservation programs for wildlife the lions share of course going to preservation of elephants I would support the sale! BUT the concern is if what money is realized won’t be misapplied thus kufyoocha fye!
Has a stocktake been done, is it all there. Chinese highly value ivory.
All the ivory needs to be sold. The most important important thing is to tighten the noose on poachers and their sponsors. Until there are stiffer punishments on the poaching trail, the battle will be very hard to win. But destruction of ivory is a loss on our part – this is our resource. Ivory is not like drugs – developed countries would not be doing this if it were the other way around.
All the big game in Africa will be gone sooner than later, I’m afraid.
how many elephants?
More than 100 tonnes of ivory was set ablaze in Kenya, the largest ever such fire, in an attempt to shock the world into protecting endangered elephants.
Eleven giant pyres of tusks from around 6,000 elephants, a quantity seven times the size of any previous burn, were lit by the Kenyan president, Uhuru Kenyatta, at a ceremony in Nairobi national park on Saturday.
Kenyatta, who was joined by other African leaders and foreign officials, has demanded a total ban on the ivory trade to protect the future of wild elephants on the continent. The move has been supported by a range of conservation groups.
On the bonfire were tusks, ivory sculptures and rhino horn confiscated by the Kenyan authorities and said to be worth up to $105m (£82m) on the black market
Burn the whole lot. CITES must not allow the Zambian Government to sell an single Kilogram or ounce of thie Ivory. They are thieves, and the funds raised will only be a motivator to increase poaching and the GRZ officers using their positions to poach. These people in Government of Zambia are all masquarading as decent people when they are basically criminals under a political party called PF.
Why don’t you also advocate for the closing of the mines if this is your position? Soon, copper will also be an endangered species to be covered under CITES.
One nation…CITES acronym for. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
With your obvious intelligence let us all know where copper fits into CITES charter.
The problem with Ivory is how to account for whats legal and whats illegal.. The complicated part of this is not in Zambia but in China and Vietnam, the major destinations for our mercilessly butchered and endagered species. The sellers in the destination countrys have a permitted stock pile of legal product that doesnt run out or reduce yet they make millions in sales… How do they make millions in sales without running out of inventory? Why they retain the same old ‘legal’stock whilst trading in illegal stock, of course! To exacerbate this, the Chinese or Vietnamese authorities turn blind eye to this. Burn the lot!! A live elephant should be worth millions more than an ivory sculpture, not the other way round.
If they carry on killing elephants, the only elephants we’ll see in 50 years times are those in highly-protected zoos.
Don’t sell it and don’t burn it. But let Zambian Curio artists make works of art from it depicting our cultures n wild life curios to sell to the western, developed and far east countries. We need the job creation an the revenue from this.
if you kill an elephant and sell the ivory the money is gone, finished. If you bave live elephants you have tourists, you have an on going source if income into the nation that can fuel greater investment in the under explored tourism industry.
Bobby , i think you miss the point, CITES agreement means it cannot be sold in any shape or form
I hope President Trump sends Zambian goverment officials a Tomahawk cruise missile !