The 182-country United Nations body knows that unless elephant poaching is stopped now, the animal will disappear from the wild in a couple of decades.

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Zimbabwe and Namibia, backed by South Africa, want to be allowed to sell their stockpile of ivory.

Botswana’s ranged against them, backed by 29 other African nations, calling for an immediate and permanent ban on the sale of ivory and the destruction of stockpiles to remove its financial value.

The convention is expected to continue the ban on trading rhino horn.

However there is a well-financed lobby arguing that  those  farming rhino are protecting the species and should be permitted to make large profits by harvesting  the horn, which grows back.

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No fewer than 3 500 delegates have been accredited to Conference of the Parties to the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species known as CITIES

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The fate of the savannah elephant, poached at a rate of 35 000 a year for their tusks, and the rhino, more than a thousand of which are illegally slain every year for their horns rests with the policymakers, activists and academics meeting in Sandton for the next ten days.

It’s the first time CITIES is being held in the country that houses the largest number of rhinos and second largest elephant population on the planet.

Participants from 182 countries will  regulate the status of 500 species of endangered animals and plants.

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An environmental summit at a Botswana game reserve’s heard the African elephant could be extinct in the wild within a few decades.

Their host’s saying the gathering of delegates from 20 countries is about getting high-level political commitments to significantly reduce the killing of elephants.

The summit in Kasane’s heard of an alarming decline in
elephant numbers due to poaching for ivory.

The species could be extinct within one or two decades if the trend continues.

Latest figures from the International Union for
Conservation of Nature, show that the African elephant population has dropped from 550 000 in 2006 to       470 000 in 2013.
East Africa has seen the worst decline, from 150 000 to about 100 000.

Accused of fuelling ivory trade, China’s represented in Botswana along with other Asian delegates and those from Africa and Europe.

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