GENEVA, Aug 31 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Eritrea has joined the Elephant Protection Initiative (EPI), the conservation coalition that wants to end the trade in ivory says.
Eritrea had “one of Africa’s most northerly and isolated elephant populations”, the EPI said in a tweet.
The announcement was made in Geneva where a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) was just ended.
Yacbo Yohannes, who represented the Eritrean government at the conference, is quoted by the EPI as saying the move showed “the determination of the Eritrean government to protect its natural resources and in particular its elephants”.
According to the EPI, Eritrea becomes the 20th country to join the organisation that was formed in 2014.
“Elephants have been recorded in Eritrea since Biblical times, and today the elephants of the Gash Setit region, which are believed to migrate between Eritrea and Ethiopia, are a symbol of resilience and hope. We will do our utmost to assist the Eritrean government in their conservation, and in ensuring Eritreans derive benefits from these efforts,” Miles Geldard, CEO of the EPI Foundation, said in a statement.
During the meeting in Geneva a near-total ban on taking baby African elephants from the wild and selling them to zoos was approved.
Zimbabwe and Botswana, which have healthier elephant populations than other African nations, were permitted to export elephants to “appropriate and acceptable” destinations.
Some African nations had pushed for a re-opening of the ivory trade during the convention, arguing that existing stocks – confiscated from poachers or left over from already-dead animals – were worth vast sums of money that could be used for conservation. — NNN-AGENCIES