has asked the United Nation's permission to import elephant ivory, and the U.N.'s Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) is likely to approve the request at its meeting this week. But alarmed conservationists worry that allowing legally imported elephant tusks to circulate in China's markets would provide cover for illegal ivory bought from poachers in Africa.
China
They say if China becomes an approved ivory trading partner, African elephants "will be shot into extinction" [Telegraph].
The U.N. banned all international trade in elephant ivory in 1989, but later relented and allowed four African countries to occasionally sell ivory from elephants that died natural deaths or that were shot as rogues. CITES allowed a sale in 1999, but opened it only to "approved buyers" who could prove that they policed the black market in ivory.
Now, however, a second auction of 108 tonnes from the same four countries is ...
