Five Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries have struck a nine-year waiver deal for a one-off sale of ivory, ZANIS reported on Sunday. This follows successful negotiations for the sale of ivory at the just ended 14th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in the Hague, Netherlands. Bwalya Nondo, spokesman for Zambia's Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Natural Resources, said in a statement that the decision to sell ivory was in view of the ecological need to strike a balance between animal conservation and protection of the environment. "Zambia's desire to offload ivory on the market is keeping with the need not to threaten the carrying capacity of the environment against a growing population of elephants," he said. He said international ivory trade was an important source of revenue to support conservation and promotion of rural livelihood. He explained that Zambia and other SADC countries where elephant populations have already run beyond the CITES qualification for conditional international ivory trade pressed hard to amend the current trade ban in endangered animals. Other SADC countries that joined Zambia in negotiating for the sale of ivory are Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Zambia became a signatory to CITES in 1980.
Source: Xinhua
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