By BBC Africa
Eritrea has joined the Elephant Protection Initiative (EPI), the conservation coalition that wants to end the trade in ivory.
The announcement was made in Geneva where a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) was just ended.
According to the EPI, Eritrea becomes the 20th country to join the organisation that was formed in 2014.
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…Read more>>
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