The countries will discuss five complementary proposals submitted to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) together with other co-proponents, to provide an integrated package to protect elephants by strengthening international CITES law.
"The package of five proposals is a decisive response to the poaching crisis facing African elephants over the last decade, caused by the legal sale of ivory stockpiles to China and Japan in 2008," said Vera Weber, President of the Swiss-based Foundation Franz Weber. Weber is an environmentalist and animal welfare activist.
The proposals are listing all elephants in CITES; the closure of domestic ivory markets; the destruction of ivory stockpiles; ending the decision-making mechanism for legalizing trade in ivory and limiting the export of wild, live African elephants to conservation projects in their natural habitat.
Taken together, the proposals would put an end to the ivory trade and afford elephants the highest protection under international law. The crisis facing the African elephant is still very real, and calls for a global unity of purpose.
Of the 29 countries represented in the Coalition, 25 of them are African elephant range states, in which 68 per cent of the African elephants occur in the wild.
At the height of the killing from 2010 to 2012, at least 100,000 elephants were killed in Africa for their ivory, many of them in AEC countries.
"It is critically important that CITES takes decisive action to ban international and domestic trade in ivory to save elephants from imminent extinction. We are making a collective stand for the long-term survival of elephants throughout Africa and calling on the world to stand with us," said Weber.
The meeting is timely in addressing ivory trade which has seen at least 100,000 elephants have been killed in Africa for their ivory, many of them in AEC countries.
Poaching of elephants and rhinos and illegal wildlife trade is a major problem across much of Africa threatening the very survival of iconic species.
Poaching fuels corruption, insecurity as well as harming the sustainable economic development of local communities but also national economies. In Tanzania , however there has been remarkable progress in curbing and trafficking of wildlife.
In 2015, delegates to the African Elephant Coalition summit in Cotonou, Benin expressed concern over the silence of Tanzanian representatives during deliberations on ivory trade ban. The deliberations were a big 'No' to ivory trade.
The position of Tanzania on the issue is known and therefore, its delegates had to keep mum. We are saying this because Tanzania has been opposed to ivory trade ban for years. It had even lobbied in numerous forums to have the restrictions lifted so that it could sell its huge ivory stockpile.
Tanzanian authorities have good reasons for wanting the ivory trade to continue. The country has a large number of elephants that allows tourist hunting; when the population of the jumbos is left to grow, it creates conflict with mankind when they invade farms and, sometimes, kill people.
While we support Tanzania's position to allow hunting of big game as a strategy to protect people and conserve the elephants, we would like to remind the government the importance of stepping up the war against poaching as a long-term strategy to ensure that endangered game, particularly elephants, are protected.
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