Photograph by Kyle Dickman
Environmentalists, supported by the U.S., have won a key victory in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, a 175-nation affair held for two weeks in Doha, Qatar. The proposals from to permit a one-off sale of legally seized elephant tusks and allow for future sales.
The ivory trade has been banned internationally since 1989 to protect elephants. Tanzania and Zambia’s proposals, despite indicating that sale money would go toward elephant conservation, threatened to increase international demand for ivory by reviving whatshould be a dormant market. The danger of one-off sales is that they blur the line between legal and illegal ivory and promote poaching.
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–Kyle Dickman