Shawdesh Desk: Southern African nations are threatening to quit the global wildlife trade regulator after it refused to relax restrictions on trade in ivory and rhino horn and imposed a near total ban on zoos taking African elephants captured in the wild.

Ties soured during this week’s meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species in Geneva after numerous proposals from the Southern African Development Community regional bloc were rejected.

Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe — home to the world’s largest elephant population — asked for the right to sell ivory acquired through natural deaths, confiscations and culling.

The demand was rejected by a majority of 101 votes.

The CITES treaty, created more than four decades ago, regulates trade in some 36,000 species of plants and animals and provides mechanisms to help crack down on illegal trade and sanction countries that break the rules.

But members of the 16-nation SADC bloc accuse it of turning a blind eye to Africa’s problems.

‘The result has been failure to adopt progressive, equitable, inclusive and science-based conservation strategies,’ Tanzanian environment minister George Simbachawene told the Geneva meeting.

‘Time has come to seriously reconsider whether there are any meaningful benefits from our membership to CITES,’ he said.

The ministers accused the regulatory body of bowing to animal rights groups and unreasonably prohibiting the trade of African wildlife and products rather than regulating it fairly.

‘A great disappointment, shocking outcomes,’ said Botswana’s environment minister Onkokame Kitso Mokaila.

‘I think CITES has long passed its sell-by date,’ he said, adding SADC needs ‘something else that speaks to the issues of today.’

Competition for resources is fierce, as growing human and wildlife populations increasingly encroach on each other’s space.

Zimbabwean Parks spokesman Tinashe Farawo told AFP 15 people had died in animal attacks during the first eight months of this year.

More than 200 people were killed in the past five years, he said. Crops have also been destroyed.