China approved for controlled ivory imports from Africa – Arguments for and against
July 2008. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has, controversially, approved China as a buyer of the one-off sale of African Elephant ivory under strict conditions.
Regulated sales
The request to trade African Elephant ivory was originally approved at the CITES Conference of the Parties in 2002 and then modified to include new conditions at the meeting in 2007. The CITES meeting this week was charged with deciding whether China could be approved as a trading partner. To gain approval, China had to convince CITES it had put in place adequate measures to manage regulated sales and tackle any illegal domestic ivory trade.
for"China has acted rather successfully against its own illegal domestic ivory market," said Tom Milliken, Director of TRAFFIC East/Southern Africa. "Now China should help other countries do the same, especially in Central Africa where elephant poaching is rampant and Chinese nationals have been implicated in moving ivory out of the region." Wildlife ExtraWE believe that, on balance, including China is a good thing. IFAW state that "China's growing demand for ivory is driving up the prices paid on the black market. Prices in China have rocketed by almost 400% in the past four years from $200/kg to $850/kg today - a huge financial incentive for criminal traders and poachers." Such a high price for ivory is bound to drive a high level of poaching. As IFAW say, current levels of poaching are probably killing as many as 20,000 elephant every year, so the current system is patenetly not working. According to the indisputable law of supply and demand, adding 100 tonnes to the supply should drop the price down significantly. Also, by adding China to the marketplace, a better price will be achieved for the ivory being sold, so there will be a lot more funding to put into elephant conservation. | againstMichael Wamithi, Program Director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare's (IFAW) global elephants program, and former director of Kenya Wildlife Service, closely followed the proceedings of the meeting and feels that in no way should China have been accepted. "There are an estimated 20,000 elephants slaughtered annually for the trade in their tusks. Poaching has reached a level surpassing that which was experienced before the initial 1989 ban on the ivory trade. African elephant range states clearly do not have the capacity or resources to combat these massive attacks on their countries' wildlife heritage and the burgeoning markets in China are only fueling these attacks. It is our duty as a civil society to step in and mitigate these inequities." Robbie Marsland, UK Director IFAW said: "We are deeply disappointed that CITES has backed China as an ivory buyer, a decision that plays Russian roulette with wild elephants. Allowing new ivory to be imported into China will stimulate demand and create a smokescreen for illegal ivory to be laundered into the legal market, to be sold in stores or online to Chinese citizens or foreigners." Wildlife Extra acknowledges that allowing China to buy ivory sends a contradictory message when we protest against the farming of tigers in China. |
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Illegal domestic markets.
"The sight of ivory openly and illegally on sale in many African cities is likely to be a far more powerful encouragement to those contemplating poaching and smuggling, than a strictly controlled one-off sale," said Dr Susan Lieberman, Director of WWF International's Species Programme. "The only way to end elephant poaching is through an effective clampdown on illegal domestic ivory markets."
China joins Japan in now having CITES approval to bid in the one-off sale for registered government-owned ivory stockpiles from four southern African countries-Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Funds will boost elephant conservation and community development
Conditions of the sale direct the revenue into special funds to support elephant conservation and community conservation and development programmes. Purchasing countries have to demonstrate adequate control measures to ensure that the ivory can be tracked and remains within domestic markets. The four African countries permitted to sell ivory still need to hold an auction and agree a price, and the transfer of ivory will be closely supervised by the CITES Secretariat. In 1999, Japan paid USD5 million for a similar sale of almost 50 tonnes of elephant ivory.
Tracking illicit ivory
"After any ivory sale takes place, CITES monitoring systems will be tracking whether or not it leads to an increase in illegal trade in ivory," said Milliken. "Following the last one-off ivory sale under CITES in 1999, it is encouraging to note that the illicit trade in ivory progressively declined over the next five years. We hope a similar result is achieved this time."
WWF and TRAFFIC are active across the globe, including in China and in elephant range countries in Asia and Africa, and will be working to help ensure a reduction in the illegal killing of elephants and illicit trade in ivory.
China's current ivory trade controls and enforcement are woefully inadequate to police the ever-growing large scale ivory trade within its borders. Recent revelations from a document from the Chinese Government to the UN, has shown that China lost 110 tonnes of their legal stockpiled ivory over a period of 12 years, suggesting that it was sold on illegal ivory markets.
