The proposals were released by the office of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES. At the last meeting in Johannesburg in 2016, CITES rejected appeals to relax an international ban on the ivory trade that has been in place for decades. An illegal ivory market in Vietnam and other countries is feeding demand in China, which banned its domestic ivory trade, according to O’Criodain. A southern African proposal said Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa have about 256,000 elephants, or more than half of the total estimate for Africa. The southern African countries believe countries with their own problems, including weak law enforcement, shouldn’t impose policy on others.

Source: Washington Post January 06, 2019 09:59 UTC