A worker holds rhino horns after it was dehorned in an effort to deter the poaching in South Africa.

The South African government is considering a recent court ruling that would legalize the rhino-horn trade in the country for the first time in seven years, lifting a ban that had been imposed to reduce poaching.

The court announced the ruling last Friday, and on Tuesday the Minister of Environmental Affairs said it was “considering the implications of the judgment and will brief the public in due course."

South Africa outlawed its internal rhino-horn trade in 2009 in an attempt to stop poaching, saying that any legalized trade, even domestic, will open the black market to unscrupulous international traders. In 2012, a rhino rancher sued the government to drop the ban––and last year it was joined by a second rancher. A South African court ruled against the government in 2015, and the government later appealed. Last week, the Supreme Court of Appeal denied the appeal.

The ruling applies only to domestic trade. It is still illegal to export rhino horns internationally, something that the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora––signed by 181 countries––has outlawed since 1977. Under the regulations stipulated by the court ruling, private buyers and sellers would need a permit from the government to buy or sell rhino horns.