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I'm Alistelithhead and for this week's assignment here on the BBC World Service Africa's

Ivory Dilemma. How to Save the Threatened African Elephant from its path towards extinction. I'll be taking you from the front lines of the

war on poachers and illegal ivory traffickers to inside the halls of the

CITES conference rooms here in Joburg where there's been heated debate late into the night.

So my proposed order of business will be elephants and we will start with proposal number 14.

Banning legal traits in this majestic species is not going to solve the problem.

Legal traits can contribute to... That's us today, send a very clear message.

The trade must stop. The United States has been consistent and emphatic in opposing any resumption in trade of ivory at this time.

In Zimbabwe, if people are able to benefit from their ivory,

then they will protect elephant as being so valuable.

They will not...

Well, it's been a pretty intense debate.

We've heard from government ministers, from delegation leaders,

and that's clearly a major difference of opinion here.

The votes will decide whether ivory will be

sold again or whether the legal trade will be completely shut down. It's the route

everyone here at the CITES conference saw coming, a clash of very different

ideologies which has gone on for decades but is so important

given the current poaching crisis. The voting is about to start.

So again you will have 30 seconds to register your vote and the vote is open now.

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