Although the ZANU-PF government led by Robert Mugabe has left most of the country's national parks to poachers, on Monday it sold nearly four tonnes of ivory for almost half a million dollars, the third in a set of four auctions approved under an international agreement, an animal welfare body said.The auction, open only to buyers from China and Japan, sold 3.7 tonnes of ivory for 487,162 dollars (380,268 euros), the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) said in a statement.
One Zimbabwean official involved in the sale said he was disappointed with the earnings from the sale of the government’s stocks of tusks.
“We were, however, expecting more than this from our four tonnes. This is the problem when you just have two buyers who end up behaving like a cartel,” he said.
CITES, which regulates international trade in endangered species, is allowing four African countries to hold one-off sales only to buyers from China and Japan.
The auction will put a total of 108 tonnes of tusks on the block, in sales that some conservationists fear could make it easier for poachers to slip their illegal ivory on to the market.
CITES has imposed stiff requirements on buyers of the ivory, which can only be sold within China and Japan and cannot be resold overseas. Both countries were required to create monitoring systems before the sale.
CITES Secretary General Willem Wijnstekers, who witnessed the auction in Harare, also called for harsher punishment to deter ivory poachers.
“If punishment levels were commensurate with the crime, it would assist in reducing illegal poaching,” the state-run Ziana news agency quoted him as saying.
He dismissed fears that the auctions could increase poaching, saying “we have no such evidence.”
Namibia last Tuesday sold more than seven tonnes of ivory for 1.1 million dollars, while Botswana auctioned 44 tonnes of ivory Friday for 7.1 million dollars.
The final and largest auction is scheduled for Thursday in South Africa, with 51 tonnes of tusks for sale.
The four countries are home to 312,000 elephants, and their government stocks of tusks came from natural deaths or the culling of herds to keep the population under control.
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