Call To Lift Ivory Sales Ban, Threatens African Elephants

i found this article, and it is a pretty good read,

www.time.com...

They were called the ivory wars. In the 1980s, at least 700,000 elephants, and possibly as many as 1 million, were slaughtered throughout Africa, killed by hunters and poachers for their ivory tusks, which would be made into jewelry. The substance was so valuable it was known as "white gold," and international organized-crime arose around the trade, adding human carnage to the animal toll. Poachers would often kill baby elephants, even though they possessed tiny tusks, in order to draw out grieving mothers who would be murdered in turn. "The slaughter of elephants on the ground in Africa was just terrible," says Paul Todd, program manager at the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). The ivory wars continued until 1989, when countries at the global Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) voted to ban all trade in elephant ivory. With trade choked off, demand for ivory plummeted; African governments, with Western aid, cracked down on remaining poachers. Elephant populations in Africa began to rebound slowly. (See 10 species nearing extinction.) But today the African elephant stands on a precipice once again. The nations of Tanzania and Zambia are petitioning CITES, which begins a major meeting in Doha on March 13, to "downlist" the conservation status of elephants so that they can sell stockpiled ivory on the open market — ivory they say comes from elephants that have died naturally or was seized from illegal poachers. But conservationists argue that over the past decade illegal poaching has risen steadily, and if the elephant is downlisted in some African nations it could have a devastating impact for the species as a whole. Nothing less than another ivory war could be at stake. "This is an animal that has been under siege for centuries," says Todd. "But now it's faced with extirpation."

Even though the African Elephant has regained much of its population, it is still not a good idea to let the Ivory Trade start up again, even though African countries say its only stockpiled ivory, if the trade were allowed to start up, we would most definitely see an increased poaching activity, not only that but, once the stockpiled Ivory was gone, the price would go up, and people would start killing Elephants again like in the 80's, i think it would be a bad move if CITES downlisted the Elephants and allowed the lift on the Trade ban, we have worked hard to conserve these wonderful and magnificent giants, and have brought their numbers back greatly, from the verge of extinction

Explanation: S&F!

Why can't we farm them just like we farm/mine everything else. Farms need to be sustainable..and thats the real issue here i.e A sustainable trade of Ivory.

Personal Disclosure: OL agrees that keeping the current stockpile of Ivory to maintain a low Ivory price and discourage the poachers is a good measure, but to ignore the fact that elephants are going to keep living and dying and producing Ivory along the way, and then to ignore that valuable resource is just being petty and shortsighted. Its a Biological and therefor sustainable product and Africa needs those kind of resources to trade so that their other not so sustainable resources can be kept where they are!