Pretoria - An auction of 51 tonnes of ivory in South Africa was brought to a halt before bidding even started Thursday by Asian buyers, who demanded the media be excluded from the sale.

Around two dozen Chinese and Japanese buyers threatened to boycott the one-off sale unless journalists were barred from the conference centre of the Reserve Bank in Pretoria, where the auction opened shortly after 10 a. m. (0800 GMT).

Lot number one had just appeared on a big screen when the buyers, informed the organizers that they wished to keep their identities confidential and that no bid would be submitted unless the journalists were removed. The media was also excluded from the Namibia sale.

The auction is the last of four one-day exceptional sales of ivory accumulated in national parks in Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

The ivory trade has been banned since 1989 but the 171 members of the UN Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) have given the go-ahead for the four countries with thriving elephant populations to sell off stockpiles. (dpa)