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Official blames CITES' rejection of bid to sale 100 tonnes of tusks on misinformation. Photo/FILE
By XINHUA
Wednesday, March 24 2010
Tanzania is planning to renew its ivory sale bid after the decision by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Doha to reject its plea to sale 100 tonnes of stockpiled ivory, local media reported on Tuesday.
Misinformation had failed the proposal, Tanzanian Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism Ladislous Komba was quoted by the local press as saying.
He said the country was doing better in preventing elephants from being killed and that could be proven by the fact that it has a big population of elephants than any other country in southern and central Africa.
Tanzania expressed disappointment over CITES' decision and blasted the CITES Secretariat over its report on Tanzania's wildlife, saying it was biased, inadequate and incorrect, hence unsatisfactory.
The convention also rejected a similar proposal from Zambia to sell off its ivory stocks.
Tanzanian Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism Shamsa Mwangunga said earlier that the country was committed to the conservation of its wildlife including elephants, noting that the government planned to use proceeds from the trade for strengthening anti-poaching activities.
She argued that the elephant population had reached a point where they were trampling crops and killing too many people.
The proposal also said preventing selling of the stocks, which come from natural deaths or controlled culling of problem animals, would increase anger towards the beasts.
The country was asking to sell its ivory that would generate as much as $20 million.
It was noted in the proposal that the elephant population had risen from 55,000 in 1989 to more than 100,000 last year.
Kenya and six other African countries proposed a halt to what limited international trade in ivory is currently allowed and a 20-year moratorium on any attempts to relax international trade controls on African elephant ivory.
Ivory sales have in recent years been among the most contentious proposals at CITES.
Kenya has been campaigning for a total ban on ivory trade as it's herd is continuously under threat from poachers.
The country has been in the forefront of rejecting the proposals by the two countries, saying lift the ban would increase poaching in both countries and the region.
The tourism sector is a major economic earner for the country having raked in Sh62.5 billion last year, up from Sh52.71 billion in 2008.
There have been increased cases of elephant poaching in the country with over 200 animals killed last year; a sharp increase from the 98 killed in 2008 and 45 in 2007.
