Word: namibia
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...warehouse is someplace in Windhoek, capital of the southern African nation of Namibia. The exact location is a closely guarded secret for the treasure it conceals is so precious that it is informally known as "white gold." Inside, in room after room, stuffed onto metal shelves that reach from floor to ceiling, are tens of tons of gleaming ivory--the tusks of African elephants carefully collected by government agents over the past seven years and stockpiled here. The cache is valued at hundreds of millions of dollars...
That value is purely theoretical, however. Both the export and import of ivory are illegal because of a 1989 international agreement that declares elephants a "most endangered" species. Namibia's treasure is, practically speaking, worthless, as are the hoards sitting in neighboring Zimbabwe and Botswana--an estimated $8 billion worth at last count. All three nations are, frankly, fed up with having to sit on all that wealth. So when the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) assembles for its biennial meeting this week in Harare, Zimbabwe's capital, delegates from around the world will be asked...
...face, the proposition sounds eminently reasonable. Namibia, Zimbabwe and Botswana have elephants the way New York City apartments have cockroaches. Elephants roam everywhere, tearing down trees by the acre, galumphing through the crops of irate farmers, stomping on hapless citizens. Zimbabwe alone has about 65,000 of the truck-size beasts, though its wild lands can comfortably support only half that many, and the other countries are similarly overendowed. "The elephant," says John Hutton, Zimbabwe project director of the British-based Africa Resources Trust, "was never endangered in this part of Africa...
That's largely because of vigorous elephant-conservation efforts. But conservation is expensive, and these relatively poor countries feel that they should be able to recoup some of their losses. Namibia and Zimbabwe say they would use part of the proceeds to compensate citizens whose property and livelihoods are being disrupted by marauding herds...
These arguments are terribly frustrating to officials in Namibia, Zimbabwe and Botswana, who believe they are being punished, not rewarded, for their excellent conservation record. "This opposition," reads a document issued at a recent meeting of conservation ministers in Windhoek, "comes mainly from people far removed from the realities of southern African wildlife conservation." It's those outsiders, however, who hold the key to the secret tusk warehouses. Unless their concerns are answered, Africa's white gold could stay locked up for the foreseeable future...