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From sharks, rhinos to giraffes - they are the focus of the species conservation conference in Samarkand. As of November 24, 185 states in Uzbekistan will be wrestling over trade bans and restrictions. There is a lot at stake: the fate of more than 230 animal and plant species is being decided. The organization Pro Wildlife warns in advance of dangerous steps backwards in the Washington Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which regulates or even prohibits the international trade in plants and animals.

The Criminal Investigation Service (SIC), through its Central Directorate for Combating the Illicit Trafficking of Precious Stones, Metals and Crimes against the Environment, in operational coordination with other defense and security forces, and in close collaboration with the General Tax Administration (AGT), international organizations, and NGOs dedicated to wildlife protection, conducted a micro-operation on Thursday, 6 November, on the outskirts of Luanda.

"We have tons of ivory sitting in vaults, gathering dust. Let us sell it. If we flood the market, prices will drop, and poachers will have no reason to kill our elephants." It sounds like a solution, logical, understandable, the kind of idea that fits neatly into an economics textbook: more supply, lower prices, less crime. But the world of ivory doesn't play by those rules. It isn't a clean market driven by transparency and rational behavior. It's a shadow economy built on secrecy, speculation, and status.

Across Africa, the greatest killers of elephants are poaching, illegal ivory trade, habitat loss, and government-sanctioned hunting. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and TRAFFIC have repeatedly identified organized wildlife trafficking networks as the main drivers of elephant declines. The African Elephant Status Report shows tens of thousands of elephants slaughtered over the past decades due to ivory demand, not activism.

EAGLE Côte d'Ivoire - 2 traffickers arrested with 32kg ivory. The ivory, concealed in a rice sack, was trafficked from Liberia. The Burkina Faso National trafficker denounced the other for being a known big ivory trafficker.