Government outlays dropped, particularly as census takers left the payroll, and retailers sold stockpiled merchandise.
Government outlays dropped, particularly as census takers left the payroll, and retailers sold stockpiled merchandise rather than newly ordered goods.
The "Say no to ivory" campaign that Davis is fronting aims to change this by persuading the 2013 meeting of Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) to prevent African governments from selling stockpiled ivory, arguing that such licenses stimulate the market and fuel poaching.
Since the 1989 international ban on ivory trade, CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) allowed several one-off ivory sales, in which southern African countries were allowed to sell their stockpiled ivory to demand countries like China and Japan.
The U.S. Senate has passed a bill that would allow the government to continue selling its stockpiled helium, raising hopes that legislators can avoid a looming disruption in the helium trade that researchers and high-tech companies say would be disastrous.
That year, CITES allowed Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to sell 50 tons of stockpiled ivory to Japan, calling it a "one-time sale".
Last year, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species ruled that Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe could sell 108 tons of stockpiled ivory to approved Japanese and Chinese buyers.
But, Chan notes, in 1996 the Helium Privatization Act mandated that the Department of the Interior sell off all the stockpiled helium by 2015.
A ban enacted by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in 1990 was effective in toppling the ivory trade, The New York Times notes, but that ban only lasted until 1999 when Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia were permitted to sell 50 tons of stockpiled ivory to Japan.
