Botswana allays advocating for ivory stockpiles sale

14 Décembre 2017

Gaborone, Botswana, December 14 (Infosplusgabon) -  Botswana has denied reports alleging that the country will put pressure on Convention on International Trade on Endangered Species (CITES) to allow the sale of ivory stockpiles.

Rule Jimmy Opelo, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources and Tourism, on Thursday allayed the reports and reiterated that Botswana has not changed its position.

“Botswana does not support the selling of ivory at the moment because there is no system in place to curb availability of illicit ivory in the market,” said Opelo.

He said it would be difficult to differentiate between legal and illegal ivory, which would in essence drive the illicit ivory market and spur poaching.

“To buttress our position and through membership to the Elephant protection initiative (EPI), Botswana has imposed a moratorium on itself not to consider ivory sales until 2024,” Opelo said.

Last week’s media reports quote environment minister Tshekedi Khama as disapproving Kenya’s decision to burn stockpiles of ivory to discourage poaching Botswana has a population of over 200,000 elephants.

FIN/INFOSPLUSGABON/UIJ/ GABON 2017

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