It looks better on an elephantFOR anybody who fears that China’s interest in elephants’ tusks could spell doom for the great beasts, there have been two pieces of good news. On September 25th Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, joined Barack Obama in pledging “significant and timely steps” to halt commercial trade in ivory. Then on October 15th China announced a one-year ban on the import of ivory hunting trophies from Africa, closing a big loophole. Wildlife activists are delighted. These moves should have “a profound effect” on elephant numbers, says Peter Knights of WildAid, a charity.
The world’s elephant population has dived from 1.2m in 1980 to under 500,000 today. In 1989 the sale of ivory was banned worldwide. But in 1999 and again in 2008, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), a conservation pact, allowed the sale of stockpiles of ivory from southern Africa to China. The countries vowed to use the proceeds for conservation; China claimed it had a robust registration system that would keep illegal ivory out. But conservationists rightly predicted the concession would fuel more...Continue reading
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