World considers resuming ivory trade

By environment reporter Sarah Clarke

Updated Sat Mar 13, 2010 7:02am AEDT

A nine-year moratorium on the ivory trade will be challenged at a United Nations-led meeting of 175 countries starting in Doha today.

Tanzania and Zambia have put in a proposal to down-list local populations of elephants to allow new stockpile sales of ivory.

The European Union was instrumental in securing a nine-year moratorium on the trade.

But Vera Weber from the conservation group the Franz Weber Foundation says the EU is now considering supporting proposal.

"It's very surprising to see Europe going against 23 African countries that are for the total conservation of elephants and totally against any ivory trade," she said.

"It's like giving the green light to poaching and massacres of elephants in Africa."

China and Japan are the main markets for elephant tusk.

It is likely they will support the plan.

There are 23 African nations that back an ongoing ban on the ivory trade.

A vote will be taken at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which starts in Doha this weekend.

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