World's Biggest Ivory Market Shutting DownWhat It Means
Today one of the world’s largest domestic markets for elephant ivory begins to wind down. China is closing 67 of its licensed ivory facilities, including 12 of its 35 ivory carving factories and several dozen of its more than 130 ivory retailers, according to a notice from the country’s State Forestry Administration, which oversees wildlife trade issues. The rest will be closed before the end of the year.
The Chinese market is believed to be one of the major drivers of elephant poaching in Africa, which has suffered a massive decline in elephant numbers in recent years. Some 30,000 elephants are killed by poachers each year, a rate that will extinguish Africa’s elephants within just a few generations if nothing changes.
"These closures prove that China means business in closing down the ivory trade and helping the African elephant," said Peter Knights, CEO of the nonprofit WildAid, which first reported the closures, in a press release.
In 2015 Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Barack Obama made the historic announcement that the two countries had agreed to “nearly complete” bans on their domestic ivory markets. In China demand for ivory is primarily driven by the desire for status symbols among the growing middle and upper classes. Ivory carvings, chopsticks, and jewelry are seen as a way to show off wealth. In the U.S. the ivory trade has for many years been allowed for ivory brought into the country legally before 1990, ivory taken from elephants killed before 1976, and for a range of antiques and trophies from legal sport hunting.
In June 2016 the U.S. passed new regulations banning the buying and selling of almost all ivory, with exceptions for century-old antiques and a few other categories. This move essentially fulfilled the U.S.'s pledge. And at the end of 2016, China announced that its near-total ban would be in effect within the next 12 months, although it didn’t provide specifics.
Today’s move to close down carving factories is the first concrete step in fulfilling China’s side of the deal.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/03/wildlife-watch-china-elephant-ivory-trafficking-ban/
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