At a Cites Conference of Parties held in Chile in 2002, Namibia was allowed to sell 10 000 kg of ivory but under strict conditions.

The country had to implement tighter conservation measures to convince the Cites Monitoring of Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) programme that an ivory sale will not give rise to renewed poaching.

Up until now, the sale, which was planned for the beginning of 2004, has yet to take place.

According to the Cites website, MIKE's report will be on the agenda at the Cites Standing Committee meeting, which will be held in Geneva, Switzerland, from October 2 to 6.

"We are hopeful that our proposal will be approved," Louis Mupetami, a conservation scientist in the Ministry of Environment and Tourism told The Namibian.

The 2002 Cites conference in Chile also allowed Botswana and South Africa to conduct a one-off ivory sale.

At the meeting, the three southern African states argued that because of their successful conservation efforts, elephant populations had recovered to the point where they were overcrowding their habitats and getting into conflict with people for survival.

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