By James Isiche

October marks the 20th anniversary of the global ban on international ivory trade. In 1989, member nations of the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) made this decision to accord elephants the highest level of protection in response to the alarming killing of elephants in Africa in the 1980s.

But this anniversary is not the happy occasion it should be because numerous actions over the past decade have undermined its integrity.

Soon after adoption of the ban, most experts agree, poaching levels and global market demand plummeted — and with them the incentive to kill elephants.

The effects of the ban were positive – until they were undermined by a 1999 Cites decision to allow Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe to sell 50 tonnes of ivory to Japan in an "experimental" one-time stockpile sale. With this experiment, Cites also developed two programmes to monitor poaching and illegal trade with the objective of determining whether potential upsurge in poaching was related to the one-off sale.

To date, those programmes have failed to effectively deliver the necessary information.

Nonetheless, there was an outcry from a number of elephant-hosting African states that poaching had started again in earnest and there was a possible correlation to the Cites decision.

The demand for ivory in Asia was growing, and poachers worked relentlessly to feed the illegal markets. In 2007 and despite several West, Central and East African nations providing unequivocal proof that poaching had risen, Cites approved yet another one-off sale by the initial three southern Africa nations and the inclusion of South Africa. The sale was done late last year with Japan and China being the recipients.

Members states were opposed to this trade and had proposed a 20-year moratorium but were offered a compromise — nine years of moratorium but only after the one-off sale was executed. The result? The elephant slaughter began soon after the one-off sale talks.

Despite recent ivory seizures reported by Government agencies, the demand for ivory in Asia is growing, even insatiable. For what? To produce non-essential items such as jewellery, carvings and seals.

However, elephants are not an infinite resource. Their recovery in populations takes years and substantial financial and human resources. This endangered species is in crisis yet again. Scientists estimate 104 African elephants are killed every day. That is at least four elephants every hour. Between August 2005 and August 2006, the estimated poaching was placed at 23,000 African elephants.

Kenya has not been spared. Poaching is increasing by the year not only in the former main battlegrounds of Tsavo, but across the country. In 2007, 49 elephants were killed for their tusks; last year, this figure more than doubled and going by this year’s trend, poached elephants could easily triple those of 2007 by December.

So who should be held accountable for this needless poaching? Every person and nation involved in the facilitation of the ivory trade should take responsibility. In particular, the EU has played a key role in facilitating the one-off sales compromises at Cites due to its effective voting power. It is time the EU changed and swam against the tide to save this species.

Scientists warn the African elephant could be effectively extinct across most of Africa in just 15 years.

Perhaps this is the light in which the 1989 ban is worth celebrating — knowing that a solution exists — and that it is within our grasp.