By Alex Kirby BBC News Online environment correspondent

Much of Africa has lost huge numbers of elephants

The International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw) says nearly all ivory sold in the UK is sold illegally, because of "worrying" legal loopholes.

Ifaw's report, Elephants On The High Street, also blames internet auction sites for creating a "huge, unregulated highway" for the illegal ivory trade.

Selling African ivory stockpiles could be legalised this month, but Ifaw is campaigning to prevent that happening.

Fuelling the trade

A committee of the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) is meeting from 15 to 19 March, and could vote to allow a one-off sale of ivory stockpiles from southern Africa, where some countries say they have too many elephants.

The price of ivory

They say they would use the money raised from the sales for conservation, but Ifaw says reopening the legal trade would lead to more poaching and ivory smuggling.

Ifaw says the US has been labelled a "problem country" by Cites. It says the UK is the third largest source of intercepted illegal ivory entering the US.

The report says: "The policing and prosecution of wildlife crime in the UK is far more advanced and better resourced than in most other countries in the world.

"In this context, the ability of any country to control domestic elephant ivory trade is in serious doubt, particularly those with much fewer resources for law enforcement."

Ifaw says high consumer demand in the UK has led to new ivory being carved to look antique.

But it acknowledges that a lack of policing makes it "nearly impossible" to judge how much ivory is sold this way.

'No' vote demanded

It criticises regulations which allow antique dealers themselves to evaluate the age of their ivory, a process known as self-appraisal. "Very few" of the dealers Ifaw interviewed had much idea how old their ivory was.

Refuge in the elephants' orphanage

Ifaw also says 90% of internet sellers were either unaware of UK ivory trade law or were prepared to break it.

The report urges the government to vote against re-opening the legal ivory trade, and recommends the introduction of independent registered experts to replace the self-appraisal system.

Dr Richard Leakey, former head of the Kenya Wildlife Service, says in the report: "It would be a truly ironic tragedy if a decision made by British politicians led to elephants in Kenya, or anywhere else, being gunned down for ivory trinkets to be sold in the UK."

Too few restraints

Kenya had at most 65,000 elephants in the late 1970s, according to IUCN-The World Conservation Union. But poachers and other threats have reduced the herds to between 22,000 and 29,000.

James Isiche, Ifaw's East Africa office director, says: "The illegal ivory trade has reached alarming proportions as the enforcement of existing legislation is massively under-resourced worldwide.

"If the stockpile sales are allowed to go ahead, it will make our efforts and those of wildlife agencies almost impossible."

Images courtesy of Ifaw.