The auction concluded a "once-off" sale of ivory approved by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) by four southern African countries - South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe - a process condemned as "irresponsible" by several conservation groups. The series of auctions, beginning in October, sold a total of 101mt of ivory, mainly to Chinese and Japanese buyers, netting a total of US$15 million.
During the 1980s, poaching slashed the elephant population in Africa by half, from an estimated 1.2 million to just 600,000. Demand for ivory from the Far East for artwork, musical instruments, ornamental items and jewellery largely fuelled the slaughter. In response, CITES listed the African elephant on Appendix I in 1989, effectively prohibiting all international trade in ivory. In 1997, the elephant populations of the four southern African countries were listed on Appendix II, allowing trade with special permission from CITES.
"This is a bid for conservation," Dr David Mabunda, CEO of SANParks, said in his opening speech at the auction on 6 November. According to CITES regulations, all proceeds from the sale must be used exclusively for elephant conservation and community development programmes within or adjacent to the elephant ranges.
Mabunda stressed the importance of securing additional funds for conservation, and indicated that the proceeds of the auction would be spent on employing additional game rangers, buying more vehicles, and erecting elephant-proof fences where needed.
The fences are a costly but important measure guarding against elephant intrusions into human communities. According to CITES, recent studies showed that over 312,000 elephants lived in the four sale-approved countries. Crop raiding by elephants and related human injuries have become increasingly frequent in these countries, and are a major issue in elephant conservation.
But the CITES approach has come in for heavy criticism. "Allowing this exorbitant amount of ivory to flood the market, considering the level of elephant poaching occurring today, is just plain irresponsible," said Michael Wamithi, director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and former director of the Kenya Wildlife Service.
Wamithi's sentiments are echoed by a number of conservation organisations and elephant specialists, who believe that the auction will open the way for poachers to flood the market with illegal ivory.
The CITES secretariat is monitoring Chinese and Japanese domestic trade controls to ensure that traders do not take the opportunity to sell ivory of illegal origin.
However, South Africa's largest and most vocal animal rights organisation, Animal Rights Africa (ARA), accuses both CITES and the South African government of being naïve in believing that the dispersal of legally processed ivory throughout Japan and China can be monitored.
"This is simply an impossible task, particularly as it is well known that organised crime syndicates in both Japan and China are deeply involved in the ivory trade," ARA said in statement.
A recent study identified the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria and Cameroon as the top three sources of illegal ivory.
"With myriad conflict zones, Central Africa is currently haemorrhaging ivory, and these three countries are major conduits for trafficking illicit ivory from the region to international markets, particularly in Asia," said Tom Milliken, director of TRAFFIC's Africa programme and the principal author of the study.