Two opposing views on how to protect endangered wildlife, especially in poor countries, will clash at a conference of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Japan today.
One, traditionally held by animal welfare campaigners in western countries, says that all life is sacred and wildlife should be protected at all times. The other, embodied in an attempt to lift a two-year ivory trade ban, says the spectacular wildlife that the West wants Africa to protect will be preserved only if Africans have an economic interest in doing so. It has to pay its way. That might mean tourism, but often it will mean killing.
The belief that killing some elephants may be necessary to save all elephants from extinction will provoke fierce debate at the conference in Kyoto where five southern African countries South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Malawi and Namibia will try to overturn the ban.
This view is held by a growing number of professional conservationists in the West. But it is the five states which are bringing matters to a head by proposing that they restart trading in ivory from their own herds. The money they earn, they say, could be returned to conservation. They say that their elephant populations are stable, unlike elsewhere in Africa, and that by setting up a strictly controlled cartel they can keep poached ivory from other countries out of the market.
Many environmentalists, and probably most of the 112 countries attending the conference, including Britain, disagree. They feel there are too many faults in the proposals and that the ivory ban, agreed at the last CITES meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, in October 1989 and introduced three months later, has been the only check on the decline in African elephants at the hands of poachers from 1.3 million in 1979 to 600,000 a decade later.
They say complete control of the ivory market is not possible and any reopening would be a signal to poachers to restart the slaughter. The ban seems to be working: the ivory price has fallen with the end of the market and poaching has declined. CITES has appointed two panels of experts to examine the southern African countries' proposals. The first reported that South Africa's elephant population of almost 9,000 was not significantly threatened by poachers and was managed at a stable level which controlled culling would not affect. It recommended a reopening of trade under strict conditions, to criticism from green groups, which said the report admitted South Africa would not be able to prevent "a certain level of illegal ivory trade" through its territory from other countries.
The second panel will be reporting in Kyoto today on the rest of the would-be traders and is rumoured to be much less accommodating about the state of their elephant populations and their conservation capabilities.
The difficulty for those who wish to uphold the ban is that all the southern African states "entered reservations" when it was brought in, meaning that, although they have gone along with it voluntarily, they are not legally bound and are free to restart trading.
How can they be kept on board? One suggestion, by Richard Leakey, head of the Kenyan Wildlife Service, and endorsed by the World Wide Fund for Nature, is that the five countries should be allowed to trade in elephant hides and meat, giving them some economic return, if they agree not to trade in ivory.
The British government seemed to favour this but suddenly opposed it two weeks ago with the election in mind, cynics say - the day after green groups accused ministers of wavering and "failing the elephant". Yet there is no doubt, such is the strength of feeling among the African countries that they know best how to manage their wildlife, that a deal will have to be done.
Rhino horn and leopard skins are also on the conference agenda. Some southern African countries will propose that trade should be restarted in both commodities, but the proposals will meet a similar hostile response from much of the rest of the world. Trade in rhino products has been banned for 15 years.
