Southern Africa’s first officially sanctioned(認可する)ivory sale in nearly a decade has many environmental groups worried that it will encourage poachers(密猟者)involved in the illegal ivory trade, but the UN body that sanctioned this auction believes that data collected after the last legal sale in 1999 proves otherwise. In the years following that sale, seizures of illegal ivory dropped. Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe will sell more than 100 tons of legally acquired ivory - taken mostly from animals that died naturally - exclusively to buyers from China and Japan. The proceeds from these sales will be used to fund elephant conservation projects.