The World - News from July 9, 1989

African wildlife authorities ended a five-day conference unable to agree on whether a worldwide ban on the ivory trade would save elephants from virtual extinction at the hands of poachers. Failure to achieve consensus at the meeting in Gaborone, Botswana, apparently doomed hopes of imposing a total ban in October at a meeting in Switzerland of the 102-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. Southern African nations--Zimbabwe, South Africa, Botswana and Zambia--accused East African countries of pushing for a ban on ivory trade to compensate for their own failed conservation efforts.