Ivory Auction

ANCHOR: Namibia, Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe are auctioning more than 100 tonnes of ivory from stockpiles to buyers from China and Japan. The sales will go towards raising money towards elephant conservation projects. SCRIPT: An illegal trade which has gone on for decades, the killing of elephants for their ivory tusks, which are then sold by poachers on the black market. But in a rare exception, some is being traded legally today. The UN-backed Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species have agreed two weeks of auctions to be held in four Southern African countries who are wanting to use their ivory stockpiles to fund conservation projects. But the International Fund for Animal Welfare has condemned the decision. [Christina Pretorius; IFAW Representative]: “IFAW believes this is a disastrous decision for elephants. In fact the creation of a legal market for ivory only encourages an illegal market for ivory so the sale of these stockpiles is really sending a very bad message to the poachers and those people who deal in illegal ivory that it’s open season on laundering their illegally-gained ivory.” The countries taking part are Namibia, Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Namibia has been the first to go to auction, selling more than seven tonnes of ivory for 1.1 million dollars, exclusively to Chinese and Japanese buyers. The money raised , which could be as much as 20 million pounds (sterling), is meant to be put back into the countries elephant …