Ivory: Illegal Selling Procedures and Methods
Man’s relationship with elephants is beset by contradictions. On the one hand, they are regarded with awe and fascination; while on the other, whole populations are eradicated in pursuit of land or ivory (David 444). Even though elephants do have natural predators- the young are often killed by lions, hyenas, or crocodiles- by far their most dangerous enemy is humankind (David 444). As far back as classical antiquity, North African elephant populations were dwindling rapidly. They finally disappeared during the Dark or Middle Ages (“Saving the Elephant”).
The Arab ivory trade, which started in the 17th century, precipitated a further rapid decline among elephant populations in both West and East Africa (“Saving the Elephant”). The colonial era accelerated the process by opening up previously inaccessible areas introducing modern technology, notably high-powered rifles; in Africa, the destruction of elephants reached a peak between 1830 and 1900 (“New Rules”). Today, continuing deforestation and the encroachment of roads, farms, and towns into former elephants habits threaten both African and Asian elephant by restricting their range, cutting off seasonal migration routes, and bringing them into more frequent conflict with people (“New Rules”).
Perceptions of the main conservation issues involved have changed radically since the 1960s when the debate centered on local overpopulation of elephants in protected areas (David 444). In the 1970s and 1980s the concern was that elephants were being decimated by poaching for ivory (David444). It used to be thought that the worldwide economic recession of the early 1970s encouraged investors to switch to ivory as a wealth store, but studies by the ivory trade review group have since demonstrated that it was rather the increase in the buying power of ordinary Japanese citizens, coupled with a desire to posses ivory seals as status symbols, that triggered the upsurge in killing by stimulating a surge increase in the price of ivory between 1969 and ended 1973 (David 444).
The result was a dramatic decline in elephant numbers; for instance, the Kenyan population fell from 167,000 in 1970 to 60,000 by 1980 and to about 22,000 by 1989 (“Saving the Elephant”). In 1979 a wide range-ranging survey estimated that 1.3 million elephants survived in Africa, but by 1989 the number had fallen to 609,000, suggesting that more than half of Africa’s elephants had been lost due to ivory poaching in a single decade (Mossberg 3). In response movement to ban the trade reached a climax 1989, when a meeting of convention of international trade in endangered species of wild flora and fauna voted in favor of all trade in elephant products (“New Rules”).
There has since been too much controversy over whether or not the ivory ban has been effective in answering the elephant killing (Mossberg 3). In places where monitoring is possible, mortality has been found to have dropped in the 1990s compared to the previous decade, through critics of the ban attribute this effect merely to better policing (David 445). What is certain however is that ivory prices have dropped since 1989, reducing the incentive for poaching (Mossberg 3). Even so, southern African countries, whose own elephant populations increased, contend that they are unnecessarily penalized by the ban (“Saving the Elephant”).
Throughout the early the early 1990s, they sought to reopen a limited ivory trade with japan, and in 1997 succeeded in having restricted exports reestablished (Mossberg 3). However, policymakers in east, central, and West Africa feared that even this small scale revival might herald a return to the days of uncontrolled slaughter (Mossberg 4). To forestall this possibility all parties at the 2000 CITES conference resolved that ivory trading should be suspended until an adequate system of monitoring illegal killing had been put in place (Mossberg 4).