Namibia's big ivory gambit: The flashpoint is Namibia's Proposal 13, which seeks CITES approval to sell more than 46 tonnes of government-owned raw ivory stockpiles for commercial purposes. Namibia argues the sale would be a one-off transaction with CITES Secretariat-verified trading partners, generating conservation revenue. The funds, they argue, would support conservation and rural communities. The secretariat, however, has raised serious concerns. It flagged ambiguities around how trading partners would be verified, how trade would be monitored and whether the sale might set a precedent for future trade. Building on this, a global NGO, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), has urged parties at CoP20 to reject the proposal outright. In its own briefing, the EIA argued that legal ivory sales risk reversing decades of progress, stimulating demand and providing cover for laundering illegal ivory. It cites the 1999 and 2008 one-off sales of more than 150 tonnes of ivory to Japan and China, after which poaching and trafficking spiked to unprecedented levels. With major consumer markets like China now closed, EIA says there are no responsible buyers left. Southern African officials have previously referred to a $1-billion ivory stockpile, but closer evaluation reveals that this figure is at most $50-million