Documents obtained from the international agency that regulates trade in ivory show it gets 77 percent of its money from ivory traders, an arrangement under fire from environmentalists trying to save the African elephant.
Many environmentalists want a ban on commerce in elephant tusks. Without it, they say, the beast that poet John Donne called "nature's great masterpiece" could be virtually extinct in Africa in a generation.But the ivory control unit of the regulatory agency - the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES - opposes such a ban.
That has set the stage for confrontation at the CITES biannual meeting beginning Monday in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Environmentalists say CITES opposes a ban because it depends upon the largesse of ivory traders. CITES says a ban won't stop poaching.
The population of African elephants has declined from 1.3 million in 1979 to an estimated 625,000, according to a study by the Ivory Trade Review Group, a team of environmentalists and biologists from around the world. The study will be published next week.
Well-armed, highly organized poachers who travel freely across African borders in pursuit of elephant tusks are killing 10 percent of the remaining elephants each year, the study concluded.
At that rate, elephants will be extinct in the wild within 30 years, said one of the study's authors, David Western, the director of Wildlife Conservation International of New York.
Elephant carcasses are left to rot in the sun on Africa's dusty savannahs while their tusks are shipped to Hong Kong to be carved into "trinkets and baubles," said Richard Leakey, the eminent anthropologist who is now director of wildlife in Kenya.
"Ivory serves no functional purpose," he said. "We surely have reached the stage in our civilization and emancipation where we don't need to wear the parts of other animals to decorate ourselves."
Environmentalists helped persuade Japan, Hong Kong, Europe and the United States to halt ivory imports, beginning last June. Hong Kong is the headquarters of the ivory trade, Japan its largest consumer.
CITES' opposition to a ban has attracted little support, except from a few African countries that profit from ivory. Other African countries favor a ban, fearing the loss of tourism revenue if the elephants disappear.
Curtis Bohlen, senior vice president of the World Wildlife Fund in Washington, said, "I believe the secretary general has exercised very bad judgment in accepting these contributions, because it leads people to the very obvious conclusion that that has influenced their decision on a ban."
CITES (pronounced SIGH-tees) is the principal international agency responsible for the regulation of trade in all endangered species. Since CITES was established in 1973 as part of the United Nations Environment Program, 102 countries have joined it.
At the meeting, delegates will consider a proposal by Tanzania that elephants be shifted from CITES' Appendix II, which allows legal ivory trade with import quotas, onto Appendix I, which would prohibit ivory trade. A two-thirds vote is required for the change.
According to CITES figures, its ivory control unit has received $308,647 in contributions since 1985. Of that, $238,470, or 77 percent, has come from ivory traders, many of them in Japan and Hong Kong.
CITES' other activities are supported by contributions from member nations. Jaques Berney, deputy secretary general of CITES, said the secretariat had proposed inclusion of the ivory unit in the member-supported budget, but delegates to the 1987 CITES meeting didn't want to increase the budget.
"The problem," Berney said, "is that the only people who have really provided money in considerable quantities are the ivory traders."
Underlying the dispute is scientific disagreement over the danger the ivory trade poses to elephants.
While elephant specialists see evidence of a serious decline, CITES sees little need for drastic action.
"There is no disagreement about the decline of the elephants," Berney said. "But to say that the elephant is an endangered animal throughout Africa is, in our point of view, exaggerated."
Western, however, said projections indicate "the elephant is going to be effectively extinct much, much sooner than almost any other animal on the endangered list."
Computer models developed by the Ivory Trade Review Group were used to determine what action might stem the decline. "Only one option made any difference," said Western. "Ban trade entirely."
He said poaching has disrupted the family and breeding structure of elephant herds. Bulls, sought for their large tusks, are so scarce some females can't find mates. The slaughter of females leaves orphans that die soon after.
From 1979 to 1987, Africa's ivory exports fell from 900 metric tons to 300 metric tons, according to the Ivory Trade Review Group. Yet the slaughter has not appreciably declined.
In 1979, the group calculated, poachers had to slaughter 54 elephants to reap a metric ton of ivory. By 1987, after older elephants with larger tusks had gradually disappeared, it took 113 elephants to produce a metric ton of tusks. In addition, 55 orphaned calves died for each metric ton collected. They produced no ivory.
The ivory trade is estimated to be worth $1 billion a year, most of which goes to the traders and craftsmen. African countries where ivory trade flourishes earned only a few million dollars from ivory sales in 1987, Western said.
Elephants are worth far more to tourism, bringing an estimated $50 million a year into Kenya alone, he said. That is why Kenya and its neighbor Tanzania favor a ban, he said.