NEWS: Ivory crackdown agreed in Africa, page 1

African countries have announced a continent-wide plan to slash ivory sales in their domestic markets. African countries with ivory markets will either strictly control the trade or prevent it completely.

The new plan is expected to be approved by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites).

news.bbc.co.uk
"All African elephant range states should urgently prohibit the unregulated domestic sale of ivory," said the draft put forward to the 166 member countries of Cites, currently meeting for two weeks in Bangkok, where the plan should be approved on Monday.

"Unregulated domestic markets across Africa are fuelling a significant portion of the poaching we are seeing in central Africa today," said Tom Milliken, of the wildlife trade monitor Traffic.

"These markets consume up to 12,000 elephants annually, so its time we have an action plan that closes a huge loophole in the global effort to save elephant."

The plan identified the countries with the worst illegal markets such as Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti and Nigeria. The global conservation group WWF has applauded the plan.

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Africa is currently home to an estimated 400,000 to 660,000 elephants. Namibia is requesting an annual export quota of two tonnes of ivory while another African nation, Kenya, has proposed a 20-year moratorium on ivory trading.

These elephants are killed for a stupid reason. They don't need to die. To some humans the only thing that these creatures are good for are piano keys. The fact is that if humans keep on killing these animals, they will soon be extinct. A surviving species is much more important than a piano is my mind.

This is a courageous move by African nations to impose a hard-hitting process on themselves to address illegal trade in ivory.