African Elephant: Proposal 6

Proposal: 6
Proponents: Kenya and Mali
Summary of Proposal: A. Amendment of the annotation regarding the populations of Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa to:
a) include the following provision:

"No trade in raw or worked ivory shall be permitted for a period of 20 years except for:

raw ivory exported as hunting trophies for non-commercial purposes; and
ivory exported pursuant to the conditional sale of registered government-owned ivory stocks agreed at the 12th meeting of the Conference of the Parties"; and

b) remove the following provision:

"6) trade in individually marked and certified ekipas incorporated in finished jewellery for non-commercial purposes for Namibia".

B. Amendment of the annotation regarding the population of Zimbabwe to read:

"For the exclusive purpose of allowing:

export of live animals to appropriate and acceptable destinations;
export of hides; and
export of leather goods for non-commercial purposes.

All other specimens shall be deemed to be specimens of species included in Appendix I and the trade in them shall be regulated accordingly.
No trade in raw or worked ivory shall be permitted for a period of 20 years.

To ensure that where a) destinations for live animals are to be appropriate and acceptable and/or b) the purpose of the import is to be non-commercial, export permits and re-export certificates may be issued only after the issuing Management Authority has received, from the Management Authority of the State of import, a certification to the effect that: in case a), in analogy to Article III, paragraph 3 (b) of the Convention, the holding facility has been reviewed by the competent Scientific Authority, and the proposed recipient has been found to be suitably equipped to house and care for the animals; and/or in case b), in analogy to Article III, paragraph 3 (c), the Management Authority is satisfied that the specimens will not be used for primarily commercial purposes."

WWF position	OPPOSE
For WWF's full position, including the rationale and further information, please see page 8 in WWF Positions CITES COP14. Download PDF (3.6 MB \| 48 pages)

Other elephant proposals and agenda items

More information

Why is WWF opposing this proposal?

• 20-year moratorium on any trade in raw or worked ivory

This proposal calls for a 20-year moratorium on any trade in raw or worked ivory, except for the CoP12-approved sale in raw ivory, for Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa, (as well as hunting trophies from those three countries). WWF opposes this as:

there is no provision in the Convention for such a measure
WWF does not consider a 20-year moratorium to be in the best interests of adaptive management, nor appropriate to the rights of the Parties to amend the Appendices as and when they consider it appropriate, through decisions of the CoP
it is not legally possible under the CITES treaty to limit the rights of Parties to submit proposals at subsequent meetings of the CoP.

• proposed repeal of annotation to permit Namibia to trade in ekipas

Ekipas are unique ivory artifacts carved only by the Owambo and Ovi-himba ethnic groups. The proposal claims that Namibia has failed to implement effectively the system designed to regulate and control non-commercial trade in ekipas. At this point, however, it is WWF’s understanding that Namibia has not yet permitted any exports of the ekipas and thus explains why the system for regulation has not yet been effectively established. WWF opposes the repeal of the annotation and recommends that consideration of the issue of domestic ivory markets be considered under Agenda Item 53.1.