In mid-2015, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) carried out a well-publicised event in New York city’s Times Square. It crushed seized ivory items weighing one ton (equivalent to 2000lbs or 907kg), as crowds cheered on and photographs with the hashtag #CrushIvory flooded Twitter. Then came the post-event rhetoric about how “we’re not just crushing ivory; we’re crushing the blood ivory market.”
It would seem illegal ivory trade had already come to a grinding halt.
The New York event followed a similar episode in China where 662kg of confiscated ivory items were destroyed. The Beijing event of May 29 too was well-publicised, with China’s State Forestry Administration (SFA) pulverising the goods in the presence of foreign diplomats, including US officials. The US, as if on cue, extolled “China’s ongoing strong commitment to ending wildlife trafficking, a global challenge with conservation, economic, health and security dimensions that affects all nations.”
Now, look at the two events, and connect the dots with the thread that bilateral trade talks between the US and China were scheduled to get under way only a week after that. These countries are the world’s two largest markets for illegal ivory, and there is an ongoing dialogue between China and the US on combating illegal ivory trade. Both the Beijing and New York events were lauded by wildlife organisations, with very few questioning what arguably were publicity stunts all through.
The questionable roles of US and China
There are enough reasons to look at China and the US with scepticism. Both have been routinely calling for an end to ivory trade, but soft-pedalling on the issue on their respective home turfs. China’s SFA had in May announced that it would strictly control ivory processing and trade until the commercial processing and sale of ivory and its products ended. It was hailed by most conservation NGOs as “the single greatest measure” in the fight to save the last African elephants from poaching.
The London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) was among the few that decided to remain circumspect. The EIA blogged, “Although the Director made reference to the possibility that the ivory trade may eventually be halted, a step we would fully support, the commitment by the government of China to tackle illegal trade in ivory – or its implied intent to close down all legal ivory markets within its territory – remains open to speculation, interpretation and spin.”
The Chinese gesture had only been an announcement of intention, and not ordering of a blanket ban. Laws and policies in China still allow domestic sales of ivory. In April, the SFA itself had issued a fresh list of 34 ivory processing factories and 130 sales outlets. These included those associated with four publicly listed companies that are officially allowed to process, manufacture and/or sell ivory in China. The authorisations would be valid till 2016-end. So much for rhetoric, one would say.
Earlier, in January, China had imposed a one-year ban on ivory-carving imports. The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) felt “this domestic ivory market confuses consumers, removes stigma about ivory consumption, provides cover for criminals to smuggle ivory, hinders law enforcement and stimulates poaching of elephants.” EIA, which had released a report late last year alleging that Chinese government officials were in fact involved in procurement of illegal ivory in Africa, was less charitable, and described the measure as a “window dressing.”
The US too allows trade in ivory acquired before the worldwide ban was imposed in 1989. Trophy hunters are legally allowed to import ivory into the country for non-commercial use. Last year, President Barack Obama ordered a tightening of rules on ivory trading, but could not extend it to a nationwide ban. His plans were scuttled by pressure groups like the National Rifle Association which argued that a ban would be disastrous for owners of antique ivory-inlaid firearms. The US has so far been unable to tackle these groups, and “legal” ivory remains in circulation in that country.
Though both China and the US flatly deny the allegation, the legal ivory trade in the two countries is seen by most critics as a cover for the flourishing black market in poached ivory. This trade fuels demand, keeps prices high, and drives the African elephant population towards sureshot extinction.
A brief history of modern-day ivory trade
Between 1970 and 1990, thousands of elephants were killed for their ivory, leaving the African elephant population tottering at an estimated 300,000–600,000. Matters were debated at CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) which is mandated to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten the survival of the species in the wild. In 1986, the convention introduced a control system involving paper permits, registration of huge ivory stockpiles, and monitoring of legal ivory movements.
The loopholes in this “control” system were exposed when activists filmed ivory carving factories run by Hong Kong traders in the Gulf. In January 1990, the CITES decision was enacted, and international trade in ivory was banned. Initially, the ban helped. Populations picked up in some range states, and in 2007, the total African elephant population was estimated to be around 470,000-690,000.
But, politics undermined the ban. Southern African countries (South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and Swaziland), backed by Hong Kong and Japanese traders, claimed that they needed the revenue from (stockpiled) ivory sales to fund conservation. In 1997, CITES member parties agreed to allow African elephant populations in Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe to be “downlisted” to Appendix II which would allow international trade in elephant parts. South Africa followed three years later.
Then came the ivory stock sales. In 2002, 60 tonnes of ivory from South Africa, Botswana and Namibia was approved for sale, and in 2006 Japan was approved as a destination. In November 2008, China and Japan bought 108 tonnes of ivory in another “one-off” sale from Botswana, South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe. The argument was that these legal ivory sales would help in a reduction in prices.
Since then, the tide has turned. Poaching levels have been increasing alarmingly across the African continent. Current estimates suggest major declines in elephant populations in Central Africa, as well as in some populations in West Africa where the numbers have been fragmented and small for decades.
China’s emergence and the current poaching crisis
The floodgates for illegal ivory trade were opened in July 2008 when China was allowed to buy ivory by CITES. Since then both smuggling and poaching have skyrocketed. Wildlife organisations which had supported China, dismiss the connection between the ban and rise in illegal trade as a “coincidence.”
Now see this surge in the backdrop of China’s increased involvement in infrastructure projects in Africa. Chinese nationals working in Africa have often been caught smuggling ivory. EIA’s ‘Vanishing Point’ report in November last year alleged that Chinese-led criminal gangs were working hand in glove with corrupt Tanzanian officials in order to traffic huge amounts of ivory. The report did not go down well with either China or Tanzania, and the EIA was described by Chinese authorities as a “dodgy organisation” and that the findings in the report were “baloney”.
The Tanzanian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Bernard Membe, echoed the sentiments in his country’s Parliament. What Membe did not say was that in the Selous Game Reserve, which is close to his own constituency of Mtama in the southern part of the country, the elephant population had plunged by 67 per cent in just four years, from 38,975 animals to 13,000. Across the country, the elephant population had dwindled from 136,753 in 2006 to just 43,521 individuals in 2014.
The claims were corroborated in this March at the Africa Elephant Summit where the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reported that the African elephant population had dropped from 550,000 in 2006 to 470,000 in 2013. Also, the figures for 2014 released by the CITES programme for Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) showed that poaching rates still exceeded natural elephant population growth rates, meaning a continued decline in numbers was likely. With overall killing rates exceeding natural birth rates, poaching trends were at a level that could not be sustained.
Then Mozambique reported that it lost half its population of 20,000 elephants in five years. A government-backed survey showed a 48 per cent decline in elephant numbers from just over 20,000 to an estimated 10,300. The decline, according to Wildlife Conservation Society WCS), was triggered by the arrival of poachers from Tanzania, where the elephant population had already plummeted.
The estimate of African elephants being killed varies from 10,000 to 20,000 every year; more than 100,000 individuals were poached between 2011 and 2014 alone. With the slaughter outstripping the rate at which the species can reproduce, elephants can disappear from the wild in five years.
Selling, destroying and stockpiling
Ivory crushes are nothing new. Way back in 1989, Kenya had burnt 12 tonnes of tusks in Nairobi National Park. The US held its first crush in Denver in 2013; many other African countries have done likewise in the recent past. Yet, there has been not let-up in blood ivory trade. Free market advocates believe flooding the market by selling all stockpiled ivory would bring down prices, and subsequently the poaching. The ivory sales of 2002, 2006 and 2008, however, don’t serve as testimony to such ideas.
Dan Stiles, a member of the IUCN/SSC African Elephant Specialist Group who has worked on this aspect of ivory trade for a long time, believes that the 2008 sale created a legitimate industry that had no legitimate supplier. Last year, he and Brendan Moyle, a researcher who has studied wildlife smuggling in China, wrote: “Civil war in Central Africa won’t stop because Hong Kong destroys ivory. Chinese consumers won’t become poorer because Hong Kong destroys ivory… In fact, destroying stockpiles is risky.
Advocates say it sends a message to poachers and smugglers that the black market in ivory is over. This is a fantasy. We’re telling business-savvy criminals that their illegal hoards of ivory are going to drop in value because we’ve destroyed ivory they don’t own? The real message we’re sending is that we’re giving them control over the market, because they’re going to be the only ones holding ivory stocks.”
Whether the destruction of seized ivory items by China and the US fuels demand and pushes up prices remains to be seen, but what is certain is that till these two countries ban all ivory trade outright, the poaching of African elephants will continue.
