Ivory is the hot topic of the seventeenth Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species ( CITES ) , being held in Johannesburgthis week .
Luckily , the majority of representatives at the CITES summit have nipped in the bud an endeavor to resurrect the legal tusk trade , led by South Africa itself .
Member states of the summit , collectively get it on as the Conference of Parties ( COP ) , disapprove a marriage proposal to bring into core the controversial conclusion Making Mechanism ( DMM ) , last discussed at a CITES meeting in 2007 and not up for renewed give-and-take until 2017 .
The DMM was declare oneself in 2007 as part of a mint with African states who were against the ban on ivory patronage to derive up with an in force manner of allowing legitimate sales of ivory in the future .
As a compromise , CITES earmark a one - off sale of ivory to China and Japan in 2008 but stipulated the DMM would not be up for word again until 2017 . Little onward motion has been made in the eight years since , to the patent defeat of some .
It would appear South Africa , supported by Namibia and Zimbabwe , intend it might have an advantage this year , host the summit on plate sward , and purport the DMM come into contiguous effect , but the COP keep out it down in a vote of 76 to 20 .
" The size of the majority surprised the advocates of ivory business deal , " Robert Hepworth , former chair of the CITES Standing Committee and now an adviser to the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation , order theBBC . " I guess they conceive they would get more livelihood from a league in South Africa , after all they are act at habitation , than they in reality pay back . "
consort to thelatest figurespresented by the International Union for Conservation of Nature ( IUCN ) at the normal this week , Africa ’s elephant population has declined by 111,000 just in the last decade , due to poach .
The independentGreat Elephant Census , the first pan - African elephant nosecount , has that name rise to 144,000 . Either way , it ’s not good .
Of of course , the illegal poaching of ivory is n’t limit to just elephants , with rhinoceros andeven birdsbeing hunted for the hole-and-corner trade in car horn , tusks , and schnoz – all of which are being discussed at this week ’s meeting .
Although this was considered a winnings for the brute , the pressure is on for the delegates of 2016 ’s CITES superlative to set concrete motion in seat to increase the protection of these animals and to agree to work together to achieve this .
