EUbusiness.com – 26 January 2010, 11:01 CET

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(BRUSSELS) - African nations on Monday urged European governments to resist calls for a new round of legal ivory sales and protect the world's elephant population.

Representatives of the 17-country Coalition for the African Elephant came to Brussels seeking support after Tanzania and Zambia each requested fresh authorisations from international regulators.

Here are five Fact Sheets produced by ATE for the Kenya Elephant Forum to be used as scientific background in the campaign to sway minds and hearts at the forthcoming CoP15 meeting of CITES.

... at the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties of CITES (CoP15), the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

You will have seen the news last week: both the Tanzanian and Zambian proposals were defeated both in Committee and, on Thursday, in the closing Plenary sessions when the two bids for one-off sales of ivory were floored again and then finally really floored with votes even further from the needed 2/3 majority. In Kenya, we followed the exciting step-by-step account at the ElephantVoices Facebook CoP15 link and with sms messages from colleagues who were in the room. There are now many news summaries: see Hans' list below. You may also be intested in the Economist Online take, Fishy business: How the elephants’ success hurt the bluefin tuna. The disgusting Japanese reception serving bluefin sashimi flown in from Japan must have contributed to the increased support for elephants at the end of the day.