CITES banned the international sale of most types of African elephant ivory in 1989 by listing the Africanelephant in Appendix I. The ban came into effect inmost CITES countries in 1990. The Asian elephanthad been listed in Appendix I by CITES at its incep-tion in 1976. Ever since the African ivory trade ban,there has been a heated debate on whether CITESshould permit limited sales of legal ivory stocks heldby selected countries that have demonstrated effec-tive elephant conservation and which have growingelephant populations. The countries that meet thesecriteria and have requested permission from CITESto sell are all in southern Africa. CITES has there-fore downgraded the elephants of Botswana, Na-mibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe to Appendix IIto allow for the ‘one-off’ ivory sales.Most animal welfare organizations have lob-bied hard against these sales, arguing that the salesresult in increased demand by the public for ivory,which—it is claimed—leads to a rise in elephantpoaching to supply this additional demand. Crit-ics of legal ivory trade also claim that illegal ivoryis laundered in some way when legal internationalsales are allowed. Some have even asserted that a