[quote=http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/27/world ... -year.html] In a move aimed at countering international criticism of skyrocketing Chinese demand for ivory that is decimating African elephant populations, China announced on Thursday a one-year moratorium on the import of ivory carvings.
The State Forestry Administration, which oversees China’s wildlife trade, published a notice of the temporary ban on its website, stating that the agency had stopped issuing import permits for carvings obtained since 1975, when a United Nations convention on international trade in endangered species went into effect.
According to a report in the state-run Legal Evening News, an unnamed forestry official explained that the moratorium was implemented to let the authorities evaluate a ban’s effectiveness in protecting African elephants.
But international conservation organizations said the moratorium would do little to slow the surge in poaching that has killed 100,000 African elephants in three years, according to a study published last year in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Because the temporary ban prohibits only the import of ivory carvings, it does not affect China’s legal domestic ivory trade, which has prompted an increase in the price of ivory and provides legal camouflage for a booming trade in illicit ivory smuggled into China’s licensed carving factories and stores.
“It’s just window dressing,”? said Shruti Suresh, a campaigner with the independent Environmental Investigation Agency, based in London. Ms. Suresh dismissed the effectiveness of a temporary ban, saying that it will continue to perpetuate the desire for ivory among wealthy Chinese while stimulating demand for illegal ivory laundering.
International wildlife groups have long accused Beijing of deliberately ignoring China’s prime role in the illegal ivory trade, which has soared since officials with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or Cites, permitted China to buy 68 tons of African ivory in 2008.
Chinese officials had lobbied hard to win permission for a legal domestic trade in ivory, claiming that it would save elephant herds by flooding the market with approved inventory, thus undercutting poachers. Instead, the slaughter has expanded as the price of ivory in China tripled in just four years from 2010, according to the organization Save the Elephants.
“Every metric on the ivory trade has exploded upwards in recent years,”? the organization said in a report last year that noted that the weight of seized ivory and the number of elephants killed for their tusks had also increased.[/quote]
China Bans Import of Ivory Carvings for One Year
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MachineGhost
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China Bans Import of Ivory Carvings for One Year
Last edited by MachineGhost on Mon Mar 02, 2015 7:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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dualstow
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Re: China Bans Import of Ivory Carvings for One Year
It may just be window dressing indeed, but it's still a step in the right direction.
At the very least, maybe it'll raise awareness in Chinese and Filipino consumers that they are indirectly committing genocide.
At the very least, maybe it'll raise awareness in Chinese and Filipino consumers that they are indirectly committing genocide.
.