THE IVORY WARS

By MICHAEL D. LEMONICK

The warehouse is someplace in Windhoek, capital of the southern African nation of Namibia. The exact location is a closely guarded secret for the treasure it conceals is so precious that it is informally known as "white gold." Inside, in room after room, stuffed onto metal shelves that reach from floor to ceiling, are tens of tons of gleaming ivory--the tusks of African elephants carefully collected by government agents over the past seven years and stockpiled here. The cache is valued at hundreds of millions of dollars.

That value is purely theoretical, however. Both the export and import of ivory are illegal because of a 1989 international agreement that declares elephants a "most endangered" species. Namibia's treasure is, practically speaking, worthless, as are the hoards sitting in neighboring Zimbabwe and Botswana--an estimated $8 billion worth at last count. All three nations are, frankly, fed up with having to sit on all that wealth. So when the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) assembles for its biennial meeting this week in Harare, Zimbabwe's capital, delegates from around the world will be asked to consider taking the highly controversial step of lifting the seven-year-old ban.

On its face, the proposition sounds eminently reasonable. Namibia, Zimbabwe and Botswana have elephants the way New York City apartments have cockroaches. Elephants roam everywhere, tearing down trees by the acre, galumphing through the crops of irate farmers, stomping on hapless citizens. Zimbabwe alone has about 65,000 of the truck-size beasts, though its wild lands can comfortably support only half that many, and the other countries are similarly overendowed. "The elephant," says John Hutton, Zimbabwe project director of the British-based Africa Resources Trust, "was never endangered in this part of Africa."

That's largely because of vigorous elephant-conservation efforts. But conservation is expensive, and these relatively poor countries feel that they should be able to recoup some of their losses. Namibia and Zimbabwe say they would use part of the proceeds to compensate citizens whose property and livelihoods are being disrupted by marauding herds.

Besides, the African nations aren't proposing to slaughter elephants wholesale. The tons of ivory accumulated over the years have come mostly from animals that died of natural causes, and from a few killed by game wardens when they posed a direct danger to people.

So in January the three countries made a formal proposal to CITES, seeking permission to sell about 30 tons of ivory a year exclusively to Japan, where ivory is used primarily to carve the personalized seals known as hankos. With only a single customer to absorb all their ivory, there would be only a single importing country to monitor. A panel of CITES experts investigated and found that, on balance, "the proposal will have a beneficial impact on elephant conservation."

Nevertheless, the proposal was in serious trouble even before the meetings began. The U.S. announced last week that it would formally oppose even limited ivory sales, and Clinton Administration officials predicted that a broad range of countries, including most of Africa, would do the same. (South Africa, which is floating its own proposal to sell stockpiled rhino horns, is likely to be a notable exception.) With such widespread opposition, the chance of resuming sales is almost zero.

The reason, says Marshall Jones, assistant director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and a leader of the U.S. delegation to the conference, is that "the ivory ban is one of the best, most effective measures CITES has ever undertaken." During the 1980s, when poachers killed an average of 200 African elephants a day for their tusks, the population plummeted to an estimated 625,000, down from 1.3 million in 1979. Since the ban went into effect, the population has fallen only slightly, to 580,000.

It's the ban that has made all the difference, say conservationists and government officials. There isn't much point in poaching because contraband ivory is so difficult--and dangerous--to sell. If the market were opened up, though, the situation could change overnight. Says Dave Currey, director of the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency: "Even a partial relaxation would send a message to poachers that ivory trade is back." Indeed, the message may already be out. David Barritt, African director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, reports that elephant poachers recently arrested in Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo, said they had been told the ivory trade would "soon be legal."

Limiting sales to Japan, as the three African nations propose, doesn't make the plan any more appealing to critics. Japan's internal controls for distinguishing legal ivory from contraband are seriously flawed, says the Fish and Wildlife Service's Jones. "Their registration system is being flagrantly not followed." That wouldn't matter as much if international inspectors could somehow determine the origin of a piece of ivory. But while scientists at the Fish and Wildlife Service have been experimenting with ways to do that, they've proved unsuccessful so far.

These arguments are terribly frustrating to officials in Namibia, Zimbabwe and Botswana, who believe they are being punished, not rewarded, for their excellent conservation record. "This opposition," reads a document issued at a recent meeting of conservation ministers in Windhoek, "comes mainly from people far removed from the realities of southern African wildlife conservation." It's those outsiders, however, who hold the key to the secret tusk warehouses. Unless their concerns are answered, Africa's white gold could stay locked up for the foreseeable future.

--Reported by Gerd Behrens and Peter Hawthorne/Cape Town and Dick Thompson/Washington

With reporting by GERD BEHRENS AND PETER HAWTHORNE/CAPE TOWN AND DICK THOMPSON/WASHINGTON