By Melissa Segrest
Green Right Now
Selling ivory is illegal – except when it’s not.
Illegal poaching of elephants for their tusks is increasing. (Photo: Wildlife Pictures Online)
A confusing array of restrictions, bans and occasional legal mass sales make tracking and finding illegal ivory – made from the tusks of elephants slaughtered in spite of bans enacted decades ago — a challenge for the best of sleuths.
Now, an international UN-sanctioned group that controls the protection of elephants and the legal sale of ivory is considering a request from two African nations to conduct one-time massive sales of stockpiled ivory — and that worries conservationists. They fear it will only fuel the market for ivory, harm the imperiled African elephant and have a dangerous cascading effect on African rainforests.
“In the last 30 years, the African elephant population has declined to about 35 percent of its original numbers. The population is now less than 500,000, from a population of 1.3 million,” said Samuel Wasser, a conservation biologist at the University of Washington.
The African elephant is classified as endangered, the highest threat level. That means it could become extinct if not protected.
Despite the legality of these one-time sales, the appetite for ivory, especially in Asian countries, only increases. Only three countries — China, Japan and Thailand – can legally buy and sell ivory.
Even though there are restrictions on those countries’ purchases, the sales encourage illegal hunting, say concerned researchers and scientists.
“More than 8 percent of the elephant population is being poached annually,” Wasser (along with a 27-member team of conservationists) wrote in a recent article in Science.
In 1989, the sale of ivory was banned by the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flauna and Flora. That ban was initially successful, Wasser said.
“Poaching dropped dramatically” thanks to money given to African nations to protect elephants. “It was so successful, the money to keep poachers under control started to dwindle. Asian countries still wanted ivory, and poaching has increased sharply since 2000. As the money disappeared, things went downhill.”
In 2007, the international trade group allowed four African nations to lower the threat level of their elephants (to “threatened” status) and have a one-time sale of their ivory stockpiles. After that, a 9-year moratorium on ivory sales was imposed on those countries.
Ivory carvings and tusks seized by the government of Sierra Leone.
Now, Tanzania and Zambia are asking that they be allowed to sell their ivory stockpiles.
“Zambia and Tanzania are major sources for Africa’s illegal ivory sale. Tons of contraband ivory from those countries have been seized three times in the last decade.
“Now they’re asking for a lesser threat status, even though they are the worst offenders,” Wasser said. “They (the two countries) have egregiously participated in the illegal sale of ivory in Africa.” (The origin of the ivory can by confirmed by DNA analysis.)
The group that regulates international wildlife trade, at the center of the argument, has released its own statement in response to some of the complaints. The panel will meet on Saturday, March 13 in Qatar, to consider this and other issues.
The rise of the middle class in China is a factor in the increase of illegal ivory sales. There, the burnished product made from elephant tusks is considered prestigious.
“The price of ivory went from $200 a kilo in 2004 to $1,800 a kilo in 2009,” Wasser said. “It went up nine-fold in five years.”
Organized crime has gotten involved in the illegal ivory business, because it is a high-profit, low-risk venture. More liberal global trade laws have made it easier to ship large amounts of contraband, Wasser added.
“Prosecutions are rare and penalties are very small.
“You can buy ivory on Google and eBay,” he added, although eBay announced that it took steps to stop those illegal sales last year.
Despite bans and restrictions, the demand for ivory is growing. (Photo: Wildlife Pictures Online)
The threat to elephants is part of an even larger concern.
The Central African rain forests where they roam “are the second most important in the world for carbon capture,” Waller said. When elephants disappear, the eco-system becomes imbalanced and the effect cascades to other animals and plants.
As the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species considers Zambia’s and Tanzania’s requests to legally sell their ivory stockpiles, Wasser fears that the organization is more concerned with politics than with saving endangered species.
“It is unbelievable that these proposals have even been made. Now it’s looking like it will pass,” he said.
“How could that be?”
For more information, Wasser recommends the Species Survival Network, the wildlife trade monitoring network Traffic and the Environmental Investigation Agency.
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