The African elephant-and its tusks of “white gold”-is again trumpeting up some international attention.

In July, the Commission on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES) allowed a once-off sale of 108 tons of ivory stockpile from South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, and Zambia to China. Though the sale-the first in 20 years-was legal, China’s seemingly insatiable appetite for ivory has been fingered as one of the primary causes of poaching in many African countries.

The 1989 CITES ban on ivory sales helped restore elephant populations that had been decimated by unchecked poaching and civil wars. However, since then, demand has far outpaced supply, and the black market price of ivory has increased by 73 percent-making poaching worth the risk for many impoverished Africans.

A recent Reuters story reported that the DR Congo has lost at least twenty percent of its elephant population in the last year to poachers. Other African countries have also experienced a dramatic drop in the number of elephants in the past several decades. The UK’s Daily Mail reported that Senegal, which had 20,000 elephants in the late 1990s, now has only two.

With the increase in international travel, African countries have been able to benefit in another way from their elephant populations. Safaris and eco-tourism have become a great source of government income. In South Africa, tourism has doubled in the last ten years and become the fastest growing sector of its economy. More tourism dollars from national parks means more dollars for conservation efforts and better park regulation.

The debate is now growing on whether or not to lift the moratorium of ivory sales. Some say legalization would flood the market, driving prices down and thus discouraging further poaching. South Africa claims it should be able to benefit from its successful conservation efforts by selling its legal ivory stocks (ie, from rogue elephants or those that died of natural causes).

But countries like Kenya, which rely on their elephant populations for tourism and have struggled with corruption and regulation throughout the state park system, say that lifting the ban will be devastating to this sensitive pachyderm population.