- GENEVA - The United Nations relaxed its 9-year-old ban on the trade
of ivory today, allowing an as yet undetermined amount to be shipped to
Japan from three African nations where elephant populations have rebounded.
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- Some wildlife conservation groups object,
saying the decision will lead to a return of the poaching that prompted
the restrictions, part of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES.
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- The U.N. committee on CITES defended
its move as an effort to "support conservation and community development
projects" in Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe, three countries that
have sought permission to export to Japan.
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- Those countries say they have more elephants
than the land can sustain and they have a right to use their resources,
a view shared by the World Wide Fund for Nature, known in the United States
as the World Wifelife Fund in North America.
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- "A totally preservationist approach
isn't going to work because it isn't going to create the incentives needed
by ordinary Africans to see elephants as a valuable resource and not just
a pest," said the group's director of species conservation, John Newby.
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- "Ivory trade is one option and we
are saying let's look at that objectively."
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- He added that it was important that effective
safeguards be created.
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- The CITES committee was told that three
of the four countries have implemented safeguards against poaching. The
other, Botswana, has nearly satisfied the U.N. conditions, the committee
says.
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- Bill Snape, legal director of Washington-based
Defenders of Wildlife, said he did not believe the safeguards were strong
enough.
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- "No trade should be approved unless
clear evidence is presented that shows every requirement is thoroughly
satisfied," he said.
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- At the meeting of CITES in 1997, the
environmental group Greenpeace described the move as "a strong signal
to poachers across Africa that it's a good time to start killing elephants
again."
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- Just how much ivory can be sold and when
the sales will start are both matters that have yet to be resolved. Before
the ban Japan took 40 percent of the world's ivory exports.
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