First it was whales and now apparently it’s ivory. According to Reuters, a United Nations wildlife pact has allowed the export of 60 tonnes of ivory from three southern African countries to Japan amid concerns about the growth of the illegal ivory trade and elephant poaching in parts of Africa.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) decided to permit the one-off sale of ivory from Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, saying it would monitor closely the impact on poaching and population levels. CITES is credited with stemming the slaughter of the African elephant by banning the global ivory trade in 1989.

Scientists and environmentalists say the killing of elephants for their tusks, mainly in central Africa, has now reached levels not seen since 1989, as Asian-run organised crime gangs push the illegal ivory trade to unprecedented heights. Last year alone, experts estimate as many as 23,000 African elephants were illegally killed. Some environmentalists say that a CITES decision to allow a one-off sale of 50 tonnes of ivory from Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe in 1997 increased black market demand for ivory and put elephants in grave danger. A second one-off sale was agreed in principle in 2002 but was made conditional on the compilation of up-to-date data on elephant poaching and population levels. The CITES Standing Committee agreed that this had been done and the 60-tonne export of existing stocks to Japan could go ahead.

Presumably this is all OK since CITES says so and poaching is now a thing of the past. Surely organized yakuza gangs wouldn’t want anything to do with this–that only happens in the movies like Ong Bak II.

And Japan undoubtedly wants the ivory tusks merely for research purposes and to grind up into dog food. But still–the poor elephants! I thought the UN was supposed to be on their side?

Photo: Elephant in Kobe zoo. “Poor elephant. Horrible conditions” (even considering the sakura). Uploaded to Flickr 04/21/06 by Oyvind Solstad, some rights reserved.