Ivory Sales Continue With Auction in South Africa

South African National Parks auctioned approximately 47 metric tons of elephant ivory to Chinese and Japanese buyers on Thursday as part of an officially sanctioned sale by four African nations, Yale e360 correspondent Adam Welz reports from Cape Town. The sale netted $6.7 million, which will be used to fund the agency’s conservation efforts. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) has enforced a general ban on ivory trading since 1989, but CITES allowed South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Botswana to stage a one-time sale of stockpiled ivory recovered from poachers and elephants that died of natural causes. Some animal welfare groups have opposed the sales ”“ Namibia sold $1 million in ivory last month ”“ arguing that it provides cover for traders of poached ivory to infiltrate the market. Many groups attribute a sharp drop in east African elephant poaching to the ivory trading ban, but some southern African countries argue that they should be allowed to sustainably kill elephants from growing populations and use the proceeds from ivory, leather, and meat sales to fund their national parks. This one-time sale was seen by CITES as a compromise between these entrenched positions.