Well I haven't posted in a while, as I have been working on a few things (stay tuned for otters, hornbills, lions and giant Chinese salamanders) and the blog has been a little ivory heavy lately. But, elephants are incredible and kind of awesome for the ecosystem, so sorry not sorry!

The pachyderms are also up for a huge amount of discussion at next month's CITES CoP17 in South Africa, and just the mention of an ivory ban has caused so much controversy over the last few weeks, SKIN AND BONES had to address it.

In early May the governments of Zimbabwe and Namibia called to amend the listing of their elephants on CITES Appendix II, essentially facilitating and allowing them to profit from legal one-off sales of their ivory stockpiles onto the global market.

They argued that the 'international ban (1989) on the sale of ivory has been a costly and unsuccessful 26 year experiment'. However, reflecting on trade, poaching and seizure data over the last 30 years, it seems clear that in fact it was the one off legal sales of ivory (in 2000 and 2008) that fueled the elephant slaughter.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, the African Elephant Coalition - a coalition of 29 African states - is calling for all African elephants to be listed once again on Appendix I. This would ensure the continuance of zero commercial trade, including halting any proposals of future one off sales.