African ivory sale – The imponderables bother conservationists

The recent sale of 108 tonnes of African ivory is still bothering the conservationists worldwide even though the sale was done under proper mandate. They say the façade of using the money for conservation is just a ruse. This was Succumbing to the massive Chinese demand for ivory carvings and trinkets. United States was not far behind in this charade.
Allan Thornton of the Environment Investigations Agency says, "In a country of 1.3 billion people, demand for ivory from just a fraction of one per cent of the population is colossal. If these new legal imports go ahead, they will provide a gigantic cover for illegal ivory to be sucked in."
Here is what Dr Easa the noted elephants conservationist say “Though the sale of ivory with the permission of CITES was expected, this will definitely have a long term effect on the conservation ofelephants the world over. The impact will be not just on the African elephant, it will have impact on Asian elephant also. This is especially true in the wake of absence or dormancy of all the monitoring systems as planned by CITES earlier. There should be a long term elephant conservation friendly plan on the fate of all the ivory stock the world over. It is not good to go for short term resolutions, which are also being taken in every meeting favouring the sale”.
The majority of conservationists feel that this was no way to find money for conservation. The protagonists could have easily tapped some corporate giants.