Tanzania has postponed a request to sell more than 100 tonnes of stockpiled ivory in order to comply with the rules set by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wildlife Flora and Fauna (CITES), Tanzania's The Guardian reported Wednesday (January 2nd).

Tanzania will improve controls on poaching and tighten restrictions on ivory smuggling before resubmitting its request. The government will also undertake a census of the elephant population to determine the number of animals in the country, according to a statement from the Ministry of Tourism and Natural Resources.

Tanzania has asked to sell ivory from its existing stock, sourced from elephants that died of natural causes or that were killed because they threatened humans, in order to better fund its natural resource protection programmes.

CITES denied a similar request by the Tanzanian government in 2010, arguing that introducing ivory to the market would increase, not decrease, incidents of poaching.