Here's to 2017!
Similar to The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species’
1989 decision to ban the international trade of ivory, China's new ban will be a huge
help to elephant populations globally, as the nation is by far the largest consumer of ivory.
A 2014 report states that about 90 percent of the illegal ivory seized is destined for China, and estimates suggest that over 63 percent of the ivory sold in China is illegal.
In the 1980s, before the CITES ban, about 100,000 elephants were being slaughtered per year. In the past decade, about 144,000 elephants have been killed. These numbers show the impact of the CITES ban. However, an August 2016 report states that poaching numbers are up 30% compared to 2015.
As the Chinese middle class grows, it is imperative that ivory does not remain a status symbol. The new ban is a powerful tool to hopefully change Chinese consumers' tastes.
In addition, in the 1980s, illegal ivory was not being used as a weapon. Today, black market ivory is funding terrorism and violence worldwide. This by-product is equally harmful to our global community as the loss of a keystone species in Africa, .
...
In the past 10 years, tens
of thousands of elephants have been slaughtered across Africa to feed China’s
insatiable appetite for ivory. Entire herds from Gabon to Tanzania have
disappeared. Even baby elephants have been killed for their tiny
stubs of ivory. Scientists have said that the very survival of the species is
in China’s hands.
On Friday, after years of
denying that China was part of the problem, the Chinese government made a
stunning announcement: It would shut down the country’s ivory market, the
world’s largest.
Will this save the
elephants? This is what experts on the plight of elephants say:
• It all depends on the
price. If China simply shuts down its legal ivory trade but does little to
combat the much bigger illegal trade, then the price of ivory (now about $500 a
pound) will stay high, giving poachers an incentive to keep killing.
• Making all ivory illegal
in China could actually push the price up, like illegal drugs.
• Neighboring markets will
be crucial. If Vietnam, Myanmar, the Philippines and others do not take similar
steps, then many Chinese will simply buy their ivory from other places, which
will keep demand high.
• African elephants face
other threats, including habitat destruction and increasingly deadly contact
with humans. In Kenya, a truck speeding down a highway recently
rammed into an elephant and killed it.
• Many elephants are also
hunted for bush meat. China’s new policy will not affect that.
• If the Chinese government
really commits to combating the ivory trade, then the price of ivory could
collapse. Criminal organizations and poachers will then abandon the business,
and Africa’s elephant herds could recover for the first time in years.
The Early Ivory Trade
Ivory comes from an elephant’s
tusks, the equivalent of its incisor teeth. Ivory has been coveted for
thousands of years because it is strong, beautiful and relatively easy to
carve.
In the 19th century,
European nations used ivory for billiard balls, piano keys, buttons, snuffboxes
and false teeth. Countless elephants in central Africa were shot down. Joseph
Conrad thinly fictionalized the ruthless scramble for ivory in “Heart of
Darkness.”
Scientists believe that
before the 19th-century ivory craze, more than 10 million elephants roamed the
earth. Today, there are about 500,000.
The New Scramble for Ivory
Around 2002,
conservationists across Africa started noticing the same thing: a growing
proportion of dead elephants with their faces sawed off and tusks missing. At
the same time, China’s economy was beginning to boom. In China, ivory is a
status symbol, carved into bracelets, bookmarks, shot glasses, statuettes,
chopsticks, combs and many other objects. As China’s middle class grew to the
hundreds of millions, a new scramble for ivory intensified.
The ivory trade has been
abetted by pervasive corruption, extreme poverty and the presence of armed
groups in many areas of Africa where the last great elephant herds roam.
Elephants are killed many
ways. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, they have been shot by poachers from
helicopters. In Kenya, bows and arrows are often used, a quieter method that
attracts less attention. In Malawi, poisoned pumpkins are rolled into the road
for the elephants to eat. The poachers include subsistence hunters, rebel
groups and even American-allied African militaries.
And the threat is not just
to elephants. In recent years, African governments have reported that
poachers have killed scores of wildlife rangers.
Criminal gangs buy the ivory
from poachers and ship it to Asia, bribing government officials along the way.
The ivory is sometimes packed with anchovies or chili peppers, to throw off the
sniffer dogs used by customs agents and law enforcement officials.
Jeffrey Gettleman
New York Times
December 30, 2016
Go make a difference!
