Tanzania won’t request downlisting elephants at next CITES meeting

Some good news from colleagues who are in Arusha, Tanzania this past week for the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment.

It is now official that Tanzania will not request a downlisting of its elephant population at the next Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meeting in March.

That means elephants in Tanzania will continue to benefit from the highest level of protection possible under CITES.

It certainly doesn’t mean elephants in Tanzania and elsewhere are saved.

It simply means that there won’t be any legal trade in ivory to go along with the illegal trade currently ravaging elephant populations. It also means that we can keep concentrating on stopping the illegal trade, and the international criminal syndicates behind ivory trafficking, that wreak the type of devastation we saw in Cameroon.

--AH

NOTE: Tanzania proposed a stockpile sale of over 100 tons of ivory to China and Japan on October 4, 2012.  As of October 10, 2012, Zambia had not submitted an ivory stockpile sale proposal. – ED