Lift the Ivory Trade Ban

Mar 16, 2010 Mark Somerfield
African Elephants: Should the trade ban be lifted? - Public licence
Discussions regarding trade in elephant tusks have tended to dominate CITES (Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species) meetings for many years. Many African Elephant species are listed as endangered by the IUCN and most count as Appendix I banned trade items under CITES.
Yet several African nations have submitted motions to allow restricted trade on their own elephant populations, in some cases on repeat occasions. Ivory is big business, particularly in Asia, where there is a high demand for it for use in traditional family seals, handicrafts and art work. Furthermore, combating elephant poaching is a costly process and many nations argue that the proceeds for managed sales of elephant tusks could be used to help conserve them.
In 1989, African Elephants were listed under CITES as an Appendix 1 endangered species, effectively banning the international trade in ivory. A number of petitions to downgrade the listing by some African nations were rejected in subsequent years, until 1997 when Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe were allowed to sell raw ivory stocks to Japan in a one off sale. Petitions to allow further trade in 2000 were rejected.
In 2002 Namibia, Botswana and South Africa were allowed to trade a further 60 tons, and in 2008 a further seven tonnes were sold, fetching around £700,000 from bidders in Japan and China. A subsequent 10-year moratorium was imposed on further proposals for ivory trade - yet in 2010, ivory trade discussions are back on the table. This time, it is Tanzania and Zambia who are the main protagonists.
Before the 1950s it is estimated that there were around 5 million elephants in the wild. But the increasing globalization of trade coupled with ready markets in Asia meant that the ivory trade boomed in the subsequent decades. In the 1980s it is estimated that 100,000 elephants were being killed a year, decimating herds by upward of 80% in some regions – Kenya suffered the worst, losing 85% of its population between 1979 and 1983.
Yet in other countries, such as Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa, populations were either sustained or even increased. This geographical disparity that has caused disagreement over the best way of handling the ivory trade.
Those who argue for regulation believe that money made from the sale of ivory could be invested in stopping poaching. Poaching in many regions is on the increase. In 2007, 45 elephants were killed by poachers in Kenya, but in 2009 that figures was 271. For poachers the high value of ivory as a commodity and the ready markets in Asia make poaching worth the risk.
But others believe that the rise in poaching has come about as a direct result of the ivory sales in 2008 and that legalising the trade in ivory would simply lead to market growth. Moses Litoroh, one of the co-ordinators of Kenya's elephant programme, has described that market as 'insatiable' and believes that the evidence shows that supply of ivory creates further demand.
The IUCN, the parent organisation of CITES, has a commitment to maintaining an a dialogue with human development agencies and a careful approach is needed to balance economic, social and environmental concerns.
While the CITES delegates all realise that the welfare of such species is paramount, disagreement will continue over the best management solutions to ensure that welfare. There are case studies that demonstrate both successes and failures of both blanket bans and management schemes and recommendations based on science are often filled with caveats, due to the difficulty of implementing rigorous methodologies in such complex environments.
Whatever the outcome of the latest petitions, the trade in ivory is a complex issue that is unlikely to disappear in the near future.
References
Telegraph "Elephant Tusks Sold Legally For First Time In A Decade", 28 Oct 2008.
Elephant Voices, "CITES and the Ivory Trade" (January 2010)
CITES (March 16 2010)
Copyright Mark Somerfield. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.
African Elephants: Should the trade ban be lifted? - Public licence High demand for ivory in China and Japan - Public licence Poaching is on the rise in Kenya - Lord Mountbatten$(function() {$(".imageCarousel").jCarouselLite({btnNext: ".next",btnPrev: ".prev",visible: 3});});
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Trade in Mammoth Ivory

It is 4,000 years or more since the last woolly mammoths, with their spectacularly curved tusks and heavy shaggy coats, roamed the icy wastes of Siberia and Alaska. Climate change and hunting by prehistoric humans are thought to have driven them to extinction.
Although elephants are plentiful in Southern African countries such as Botswana and South Africa, in some countries of Central and West Africa, poaching is now pushing populations to extinction. (photo by Flickr user exfordy)
But the trade in ivory from the tusks of the ancient animals is now booming – and may present a risk to the future of the African elephant, conservationists fear.
The bodies of thousands of woolly mammoths have been found preserved in the frozen Siberian tundra, and the tusks are the best-preserved part of all.
According to a report, as much as 60 tonnes of Siberian mammoth tusks are being exported from Russia every year, mainly to China, where they end up in the workshops of its flourishing ivory-carving trade, being turned into brooches, pendants, figurines and thousands of other ivory objects, and sold around the world.
Conservationists are concerned that this legal trade could be used as a front for the laundering of illegally poached elephant ivory, thereby fuelling the poaching of elephants. The trade in African elephant ivory was outlawed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, Cites, in 1989, to halt the plunge in elephant numbers.
“Wild elephant populations were decimated by the ivory trade. By the time the 1989 Cites ban came into force, Africa’s elephants had been reduced by more than 50 per cent,” said Mark Jones, programmes director at Care for the Wild, the international wildlife charity which commissioned the mammoth ivory report. “Poaching continues to threaten wild elephants. Anything that encourages the continued demand for ivory products, whether mammoth ivory or elephant ivory, could potentially exacerbate this threat.”
The report, by Edmond and Chrysee Martin, paints a remarkably detailed picture of a flourishing and valuable commerce in extinct animals – worth more than $20m (£12.6m) annually.
It points out that trade in woolly mammoth ivory has been going on in Russia and the rest of Asia for thousands of years, and reached a peak in the 19th century, but during the communist period from 1917 to 1991 business declined sharply.
However, since the early 1990s the domestic and international trade in mammoth tusks has reopened and expanded owing to the freeing-up of the Russian economy, more foreign visitors to the country and greater demand for ivory because of the Cites ban.
“In recent years,” says the report, “60 tonnes of mammoth tusks have been exported annually from Russia, mostly to Hong Kong for carving in mainland China.” There are also carving industries in parts of Russia, but most of these objects are sold on within the country.
Hunting for the tusks is now a major activity. “Every year from mid-June, when the tundra melts, until mid- September, hundreds if not thousands of mostly local people scour the tundra in northern Siberia looking for mammoth tusks,” the report reveals.
“All are Russians, as foreigners cannot obtain a permit to collect tusks. Some tusks are easily seen on the banks of rivers while others are detected on the flat lands. All types of transport are used to transport the tusks: boats, lorries, aeroplanes and even helicopters.”
The centre of the trade is the Siberian town of Yakutsk. Once the tusks are accumulated, traders send large planes to pick them up and send them to Moscow. They are paid for by weight. With the average export price of mammoth ivory in 2009 being $350 per kilogram, or $350,000 per tonne, the current trade is worth about $21m per year to Russia. The vast majority of the tusks are sent to Hong Kong, although some also go to Germany and the US. Nearly all are then re-exported to mainland China, where there is a well-established ivory carving trade, and where they are crafted into ivory objets d’art: some stay in China for domestic sale but many are sent back for sale to Hong Kong, and all around the world.
“Many thousands of recently made mammoth ivory items are for sale in Asia, Europe and North America,” says the report. “People wishing to buy an elephant ivory object may purchase a similar one crafted from mammoth ivory that is legal and free of cumbersome paperwork. Mammoth ivory items are not for sale in Africa. If mammoth objects were to be offered in Africa, they could be a cover for elephant ivory items.”
However, the report’s authors fall short of calling for a mammoth ivory ban, saying there is no evidence that the worldwide mammoth ivory trade is yet affecting either the African or Asian elephant.
“For this reason, and because the species is extinct and large quantities of tusks are still available in Siberia, it is the opinion of the authors that a ban on mammoth ivory commerce is not currently justified,” says the report.
Yet they sound a cautionary note, saying: “In future, a problem could occur if mammoth tusks of Chinese-made ivory items were brought into African countries, where law enforcement is poor, specifically as a cover for illegal elephant ivory carving and sales.”
Although elephants are plentiful in Southern African countries such as Botswana and South Africa, in some countries of Central and West Africa, poaching is now pushing populations to extinction. Chad is thought to have only a few hundred left while Senegal and Liberia may have fewer than 10. Sierra Leone’s last elephants were wiped out by poachers in November last year.
In Kenya, whose wildlife protection measures are among the strongest in Africa, the number of elephants killed by poachers rose from 47 in 2007 to 98 in 2008 and 214 in 2009. Reports suggest that at least 15 tonnes of African ivory tusks and pieces – the equivalent of up to 1,500 elephants – were seized in, or en route to, Asia during 2009.
Mammoth facts: The history – and prehistory – of a colossal creature
The woolly mammoth, mammuthus primigenius, sometimes also called the tundra mammoth, is perhaps the best known of the several species of mammoth which existed in prehistoric times, due to the many well-preserved carcasses found in the frozen tundra of Siberia.
Woolly mammoths were no bigger than Asian elephants, though their spectacular curving tusks were in a class by themselves, reaching up to seven feet long and weighing as much as 70kg each – which, at $500 per kilo for the best quality, is a lot of ivory, and a lot of money for the finder.
Protected against the cold in their long, shaggy coats, they roamed the frozen plains of Eurasia during the Ice Age, but declined to extinction about 10,000 years ago, probably because of human hunting, though it is thought that small groups may have survived into historic times.
It is believed that a dwarf subspecies may have survived on Wrangel Island, in the Arctic Ocean, until as late as 1,700BC.
Rumours persist that the animal may still survive in tiny numbers in the taiga, the vast Siberian plain forest, much of which remains unpenetrated – but nobody has ever provided any convincing evidence.
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