African nations at loggerheads on how best to manage the continent's endangered elephants failed Monday to hammer out a compromise after three days of tense meetings, conservationists said.
The debate has transfixed a meeting of the 171-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), the UN body charged with regulating commerce in threatened wildlife.
Twenty African nations led by Kenya and Mali have called for a 20-year moratorium on the ivory trade, arguing that a total ban was the only way to guarantee the long-term survival of the species.
Limited trade simply encourages poaching and smuggling, they say, pointing to a sharp increase in illegal commerce since occasional sales of ivory resumed in 1997 after an eight-year ban.
But four other countries -- South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe -- are seeking to loosen the restrictions on international trade in ivory, especially to Japan.
Siphoning money from ivory sales into conservation, they argue, will help manage elephant populations and will benefit local communities.
They also claim that the roaming pachyderms are too numerous in some areas, disrupting the livelihood of local communities.
"They talked all through the weekend," said the representative of a wildlife conservation group monitoring the meeting. "If they don't find a compromise, they could decide to take their proposals off the table," leaving things as is.
Another source close to the meeting indicated that slashing the moratorium period was also under discussion.
Elephants have been a divisive issue ever since CITES came into force in 1975.
Even the conservation groups do not agree, with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) supporting the 20-year ban, and TRAFFIC -- a joint programme of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and The World Conservation Union -- against the moratorium.
CITES banned international trade in ivory in 1989, but has since allowed several once-off sales of ivory stocks collected from dead animals or poachers.
Once in the millions, the population of African elephants today numbers around 500,000, experts say.
