2016 was expected to be a year of joy for Zimbabwe?s National Parks and Wildlife Authorities. A joy in the form of a lift on the nine-year ban, or rather the suspension on the international trade of ivory from the country.  The suspension was imposed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) as part of a strategy to end poaching.  However, the ban was not lifted. The, acting director for Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife, Romana Nyahwa, was quoted in the local media saying,

More so, an application for a special permission will need to be made by the country to sell the ivory. This comes at a time when the annual ivory security bill has risen to more than $13 million as the ivory stocks have increased to seventy tones from a previous record of twenty-nine and forty-two respectively. Another country that was so much in need of the uplift of the ban on ivory trade is Namibia.

"It could offer criminal syndicates new avenues to launder poached ivory, undermining law enforcement,? they said.

But here is the problem with CITES? handling of the whole case and failure to understand the situation in the two countries. Let us look at Zimbabwe: the elephant population in the country is at 100,000. Some sources say 84,000. Both figures are more than double the country?s carrying capacity for elephants which in itself is a burden. To future environmentalists like us, such is a big problem on its own. Remember the giants that elephants are, tonnes of flesh in size and consuming at a rate of hundreds of kilograms of food and leaving a great deal of destruction in their wake. In agricultural schools we have studies overstocking, with cattle of course and the scenery victim to overstocking and its appeal that can be equated to the Kalahari is nothing to desire. 

If that is not enough, human conflicts with the elephants continue to rise in the country. Communities in conflict are the already vulnerable smallholder farmers of the country. Between destruction of crops, and intimidation, their conflicts with the giants are numerous. Add to climate and many other numerous threats that make the long list, elephants are now on the list of serious threats to food security. On top of it, wildlife authorities in the country hit by turmoil have limited resources at their disposal to keep the elephants in check.  Add to the limited resources, more than $13 million is needed by the authorities yearly to keep secure stocks of tusks, tusks worth an estimated $35-million, the trade of which CITES cannot allow. Regarding poaching, efforts to curb such also requires money, money that CITES? ban will not allow the country to have from selling the resources that should rightly fund the campaign, strategies and any effort to curb poaching. If the wildlife resource systems cannot self-fund, it means more weight in a nation?s wage bill from other systems, tax system for example.

In light of this outline, elephants as a resource have in their own way become a burden to the country. When a resource becomes a burden to its owner, no degree of sustainability is attached to it. In the age of sustainable development, the age that we are currently in, burdens and threats to sustainable development need to be eluded. In that light, it is safe to say that CITES stringent on its appendices, is failing to see the need by countries such as Zimbabwe and Namibia to get the value of their wildlife resources to drive sustainable development of the wildlife system at the same time gaining economic value from the resources. In a way it sounds like a matter of big Horn versus small horn and big horn is winning by virtue of having control of resources belonging to small horn.

Now to the case of poaching which is the greatest excuse as to why trade cannot be allowed?.. The whole world has made so much technological advances so much so that places of total privacy are very few. Real time tracking systems, real time satellite imaging, and the in-thing, drones. With all these available, it is alarming that for wildlife protection there is no policy that drives for the adoption of these technologies to curb poaching just as we have COP21, the climate agreement for the world to have a better hand against climate change. Resource fingerprinting is needed for wildlife species, it should have been done a long time ago especially for species that move across Appendix categories by degree of endangerment.

Poaching has always been and will always be there. Ban of trade of a commodity is no guarantee that it will end. In fact, it makes the poacher smarter and innovative in his illegal trading of that commodity and the longer the ban stays, the further the illegal trade system becomes advanced so much so that in their advanced state they cannot be controlled. In another light, illegal trade systems can become mediums of trade for trade by authorities initially designed to stop the illegality, a reflection of desperate measures. It is my hope that the continued ban imposed on Zimbabwe will not lead authorities in either countries to become desperate else we would wake up one day to a headline like,

?Half of Zimbabwe?s ivory stock disappears? and will be left with more questions than answers. 

Below is an  Ivory stockpile archive photo by Getty Images, downloaded from http://www.financialgazette.co.zw/. Ivory is the wildlife gold of Africa whose trade continues to be banned in line with efforts by CITES to curb poaching.