Zambia tourism industry upholds elephant sport hunting position...

At a meeting on the 15 March 2007, the Tourism Council of Zambia (TCZ) upheld its previous resolution that all sport elephant hunting be banned in Zambia; one of its members, the Professional Hunters Association of Zambia, lending full support to the TCZ position. Despite this, and with a similar stand having been taken by the Natural Resources Consultative Forum of Zambia - a forum established by Government to advise it on the environment and natural resources, the Zambia Wildlife Authority and its parent body, the Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Natural Resources, oncemore made available 20 elephant for sport hunting in 2007; a quota it now intends increasing by offering the sport hunting of crop raiding elephant - something not allowed in the Statutory Instrument on Elephant Sport Hunting, which specifically excludes crop raiders from sport hunting. Recently the Zambian Government requested that the US Fish and Wildlife Service allow the import to the United States of sport hunted ivory and other elephant trophies.

Zambia is currently in the throes of a massive assault on its elephant population, the continuation of a 34 year unchecked kill which, between 1994-2004 alone, saw 130 tonnes of ivory being handled by a single syndicate on its route through Malawi to the Far East. Recently, DNA analysis carried out by the University of Washington reveals that six tonnes of this syndicates ivory was taken mainly from Zambia, with the Zambezi and Luangwa Valleys being the main source - the area where the sport hunting permits are given effect. Recently ivory poachers, comprising officers of the Zambia Wildlife Authority and villagers have been apprehended or are under investigation for elephant poaching within a safari hunting concession in the Luangwa. Recently elephant, with their tusks and trunks removed, have been seen floating in the Luangwa and Kafue rivers.

This support for a ban to be placed on elephant sport hunting, and the evidence of the current crisis, makes clear that the Kenya/Mali position at the forthcoming CITES COP meeting in June will be carried, with many in conservation realizing that the sale of the South African, Namibian and Botswana ivory stocks to a corrupted and unregulated Far East market will place Africa's elephant in total jeopardy.