AFRICA:Limited sales of ivory are to be allowed from southern African countries, followed by a nine-year freeze, under the terms of a compromise hammered out at a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) yesterday.
Conservationists gave a mixed reception to the deal. Some warned that any sales would stimulate illicit markets.
Michael Wamithi, a Kenyan delegate of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said: "It will excite a demand that can never be supplied by legal sources. It will encourage the illegal market, and that's what kills elephants."
Deadlock on the ivory trade overshadowed the two-week Cites meeting, which wraps up in The Hague today. The international trade was banned in 1989.
Since then populations of elephants have rebounded in southern African states but poachers are still estimated to be killing at least 20,000 each year, mostly in central and east Africa.
Kenya started out by pushing for a 20-year moratorium on even discussing resumption of the trade. Southern African states, however, argued that carefully controlled exports would allow them to pump profits into elephant conservation.
Yesterday, the 171-member Cites meeting agreed a nine-year moratorium, but the compromise allows South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe to sell their stockpiles of legally acquired tusks - which conservationists estimate at more than 60 tonnes.
At present Japan is the only country certified to receive shipments, although China, where ivory chopsticks are popular, is pressing for inclusion.
"This African solution to an African problem marks a great step forward for wildlife conservation," said Willem Wijnstekers, Cites secretary general.
"It is good news for the elephants and the people who live alongside them," he said.
The deal was reached at almost 3am yesterday after hours of occasionally bad-tempered negotiations. Jochen Flasbarth, Germany's chief delegate, who led mediation efforts, said: "This is really a great day for the elephants."
Ian Craig, one of Kenya's best-known conservationists, warned that east Africa had lost out to southern interests. "This is not like the well-managed states of southern Africa," he said. "Our worry is that with so many guns in this part of the world, any increase in ivory prices will bring back poachers with a very high level of aggression."