At the 12th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (
Cop12) currently being held in
Santiago, Chile the African elephant range States have reached a consensus on
permitting a strictly regulated form of
raw ivory trade from Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Kenya was not able to join the consensus.
Kenya + India had submitted a proposal to
CITES for a continuation of the ban on ivory trade. Kenya also expressed concerns about illegal killing of elephants and illegal ivory trade and noted that two monitoring systems for tracking such activities are not yet fully operational.
Botswana, Namibia, South Africa + Zimbabwe have agreed to export a total stock of
70 tonnes of raw ivory under a series of very strict conditions. Subsequent annual export quotas can only be established after the monitoring systems provide feedback and they have been authorized at a meeting of the African elephant range States.