Africa vs Africa conflict dominates CITES summit

Information coming out of the Conference of Parties (CoP), CITES’ (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) highest decision-making meeting held every three years, indicates that key proposals being pursued by Botswana and its regional neighbours have suffered setbacks.

The proposals include a once-off ivory sale of government-owned ivory stockpiles with the restriction that the funds are used for conservation initiatives. The last such sale took place in 2008 and before that, another sale was permitted in 1999.