Japan rolls out tough measures to curb illegal ivory trade

Under intense pressure to shut down its domestic ivory market, Japan has announced strict measures to control the illicit trade.

The country's Environment Ministry has made it mandatory for traders to prove the legal status of ivory pieces through carbon dating. The new law would be enforced starting July.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), a global wildlife trade regulator, bans international trade of ivory obtained from African elephants after 1990.

But a large number of countries, including Japan, allow domestic trade of ivory procured before 1990.

For law enforcement agencies, it's a major challenge to ascertain the age of carved and raw ivory pieces. To make things worse, ivory traders often forge certificates to sell illegal ivory pieces procured from recently poached elephants.

The carbon dating method would make it difficult for traders to falsify the origin of ivory and its age, reducing the influx of illegal tusk.

"By shutting down the movement of ivory of unknown origin, the domestic market is moving closer to an effective closure," Japanese Minister of Environment Yoshiaki Harada said at a news conference, according to Japan Times.

In 2016, nearly 90 percent of large seizures of ivory shipments were from tuskers of elephants that died less than three years back, a radiocarbon dating and genetic analysis of 231 samples conducted by the University of Utah and the University of Oxford revealed.

Such loopholes have boosted the smuggling of ivory leading to large-scale poaching of African elephants. Every year more than 20,000 elephants are brutally killed in African countries for ivory.

Carbon dating is a positive step in the right direction to control illegal ivory trade, Peter Knights, CEO of WildAid, an environmental organization told CGTN.

"But now Japan needs to announce a phase-out of all ivory sales to join China, the U.S. and the rest of the world in protecting elephants," he added.

Japan and the European Union (EU) are facing sharp criticism from wildlife protection organizations for failing to take stringent action against illegal wildlife trade.

Last month, CITES termed Japan as one of the largest ivory markets in the world, reportedly creating demand in countries that have already closed domestic ivory markets.

The U.S., the UK, and China, including Taiwan and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, have all closed domestic ivory trade. Despite a ban in place, customs officials in these countries and regions regularly intercept large consignments of illegal ivory pieces.

Last year, Japan in a bid to tighten the noose around illegal ivory trade enforced regulations like registration of whole ivory tusks, traceability information for every cut piece and every worked product of ivory, and increased the penalty and prison term in case of violation.

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Elephant poaching and the ivory trade: The impact of demand reduction and enforcement efforts by China from 2005 – 2017

Abstract

African elephants are iconic species threatened by poaching and China was considered as one of the main destinations for illegally sourced ivory. In this article we combine two surveys of ivory carving enterprises with other data sets, including Chinese government seizure statistics, with market prices for illegal ivory and substitute goods, to understand the impact of enforcement and demand reduction measures on ivory prices and poaching. Our analysis indicates the strong enforcement measures to combat ivory smuggling, temporarily suppressed the tendency of illegal trade while stimulating a steep rise in illegal ivory prices thereafter. Peaking in 2012–2013, prices thereafter fell due to government measures to reduce demand under China's ‘Ecological Civilization’ programme and the announcement of ‘Eight-point Regulation’. Although our survey suggests that most Chinese carving enterprises were intending to close or to diversify their business activities away from ivory carving as a result of the total ban on domestic ivory trading by 31st December 2017 and China had banned domestic ivory trade for over half a year and all ivory carving enterprises closed their ivory business activities since this domestic ban. In order to prevent speculative demand in the world that may undermine Chinese efforts, we argue that other countries now also need to adopt multi-faceted actions to curtail their domestic ivory trade.

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'The brave ones': Women putting their lives on the line to end elephant poaching

Every day in Zimbabwe, a battle rages against wildlife poaching. The black and white Rhino has been
hammered, and the days of the worlds largest land mammal- the African Elephant, are numbered as
well unless the poachers can be stopped. Each year more than 20,000 elephants are killed.
It’s an insidious trade, the ivory tusks are hacked from a dead or dying elephant and sold for an
exuberant price before being carved into ornaments and jewellery, with China being the biggest
consumer market.

But now, in a determined fight to save the greatest creatures on earth, an unlikely band of female
rangers are putting their lives on the line on the frontline against wildlife poachers.
Tonight on 60 Minutes reporter Tom Steinfort travels to Zimbabwe to meet the incredible team of
warrior women and share their mission to save the African elephants.
The Akashinga women – ‘the brave ones’ – patrol and protect a 30,000 hectare reserve which
borders the word heritage listed Mana Pools National Park. They are the last line of defence between
the poachers and the elephants.
This revolutionary team was the brainchild of Damien Mander, a former Australian navy clearance
diver turned special forces sniper, who assembled this group of local women and started training
them to become rangers.
There was a lot of local opposition to this idea, mostly from men who believed the women weren’t up
to the job and didn’t belong in uniform.
Mander gambled that training and paying local women to protect wildlife could prove a master stroke in winning over the local community against the poachers.
So far so good. In the 15 months they have been operating the Akashinga rangers have made over 80 arrests and taken out some major crime syndicates. “This is the only reserve in this entire world that's completely managed and protected by women, and they are kicking arse” Mander tells Steinfort.

They’re smashing traditional gender roles in Zimbabwe, and in doing so, have earned the respect of
their communities.
“These women were ridiculed on the way to work, the first day they were told to go back to their
house, go back to the fields,” Mr Mander says.
“Those men ridiculed them on day one. But now, they've taken out hardened poachers so the men
respect it.”
The Akashinga women praise Mr Mander for changing their lives. Coming from backgrounds of
hardship and unimaginable trauma, the women have been able to built proud and successful lives
and careers, honouring their families and communities.

But the real object of their attention is the reserve’s elephant population. In the northern Zimbabwe
region alone, over 8,000 elephants have been killed in the past 15 years.

The female rangers are determined to see this number fall all the way to zero – and they’ll use
deadly force if they have to.

“If [the poachers] tamper with my elephants, I will catch them,” ranger Vimbai Kumire says

Their dedication to protecting the reserve’s wildlife is unwavering and passionate, and the strength
they’ve shown to get there is beyond expectations.

“I’m a strong woman, I’m strong enough,” Vimbai says.

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Outdoors: Elephants need a certain heavy protection

One of the most unpopular practices going on in today’s outdoors is elephant-poaching. That is, illegally killing elephants for the ivory in their tusks.

Nothing disgusts an observer more than a picture of multiple dead elephants killed for this purpose, or a shot of a baby standing mournfully before its mother’s carcass.

As reported here many times, the world is responding to this tragedy in many ways.

New laws in China restrict tusk trade as well as Canada, and, of course, the United States whose confiscatory practices are almost overly zealous.

Other examples of global activity include Britain,which will introduce one of the world’s strictest ivory sales bans. The new law, announced April 3, includes only narrow exceptions, and violators will face as many as five years in jail or an unlimited fine. Conservationists hope the move will prompt the European Union to pass a regionwide ban at a time when some 30,000 African elephants are being killed by poachers each year.

Meanwhile, Tanzania, since our last report, has taken further steps to protect its dwindling elephant population. The East African nation has been hit hard by elephant poaching, losing 90 percent of elephants (from 110,000 to 15,200) in its Selous Game Reserve during the past 40 years. Now the government has launched a project to monitor 60 elephants in the reserve (roughly, the size of Switzerland) with GPS collars across 12 months.

The aim is to gather data that will help protect and grow elephant numbers.

Even Central Africa’s Chad’s elephant population has dramatically rebounded. During a civil war (2005-2010), poachers took advantage of lawlessness to slaughter 90 percent of the elephants in Zakouma National Park.

Beginning in 2011, a team of conservationists turned Zakouma into a haven for elephants. Today, the park’s herd of more than 500 pachyderms is one of the largest in Central Africa.

That’s the good news. But, like any other serious issue, there’s another side. It needs to be understood, or at least appreciated. To advance a title for this problem, call it “Elephants — best extant or extinct.”

Elephants fall into two broad species: the large African bush variety and the smaller Asian species. The African seems to be under the most pressure today for whatever reason. Through the ages, the African has been used by travelers and warriors; the Asian for commercial drudgery.

This mighty beast is a marvel of nature, not just for its size, but the utility of its probiscus (trunk). It ranges from the strength to lift heavy objects like trees, to detail work with the little nipple at its end. Hannibal’s warriors taught it to remove barbed arrowheads and, modernly, it can extract errant fish hooks. So, its preservation should be a given. Is it though?

Where does the elephant fit? Not in circuses or zoos certainly, so say the animal rights proponents, with some justification. Their planned salvation to date has been on preserves, but to what purpose is that, but only to keep them alive. Modern machinery has rendered them obsolete commercially.

Left to the wild, they remain vulnerable to a poacher who reasons a pair of tusks brings him more income in one night than otherwise working a year in Tanzania — particularly, when his crops and village have been destroyed by a rogue, or, just a browsing herd.

Do we, then, allow the elephant to depart the planet, along with the white rhino that faces similar circumstances owing to the quest for its horn? Before one cringes at this solution, remember that the elephant and rhino’s earliest species similarities — the wooly mammoth and triceratops — preceded them to oblivion.

A solution for this? One way to handle this problem is to give threatened species inalienable rights.

In Slovakia, they’ve passed new legislation that defines all animals as living creatures, not things. The law, an amendment to a veterinary care bill, includes mandatory “chipping” of dogs as well as measures against illegal dog breeders and animal abuse. This is considered a historic step towards improving the status of animals. Or an extreme case of the tail wagging the dog.

Slovakia is just half of what was Czechoslovakia. My brother, who lives in the other part — the Czech Republic (Prague) — has not mentioned a like law there.

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Elephant crisis as one is killed every 25 minutes

AFRICAN elephants could become extinct within decades unless poaching is halted, British campaigners warned yesterday. The Born Free Foundation said an elephant is being killed every 25 minutes to feed the illegal trade in ivory, treasured in the Far East for its alleged medical properties.

About 201,000 elephants have been poached in the past six years.

In the past century the population plunged from five million elephants to fewer than 500,000.

Yet the animals, among the noblest on the planet, are vital for the environment, spreading plant seeds, digging for water which helps other species and modifying landscapes by uprooting trees.

Charity founder Virginia McKenna, 87, who starred in the hit 1966 movie Born Free, said: “Elephants are living treasures.

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Australia gets closer to banning domestic ivory trade

Australia is holding public hearings on potentially banning the domestic trade of ivory and rhino horns.

The country is under intense pressure after the UK proposed one of the most stringent ivory laws; the U.S. and China have also imposed a similar ban shutting down ivory trading.

A parliamentary committee was formed in April to investigate whether Australia’s ivory trade is leading to the massive poaching of African elephants.

The country currently bans the international trade of ivory procured before 1975, following the recommendation from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), however there is no ban in place for domestic trading.

Poachers and smugglers are exploiting loopholes in the pre-convention ivory rule to import and export new ivory pieces, boosting illegal trade. Ascertaining the age of ivory pieces also further complicates enforcement of the ban both in the physical and online market.

“Currently, there are no legal requirements on sellers, auctioneers or electronic marketplaces to provide evidence at the point of sale which demonstrates the legal importation, provenance, or age of an elephant or rhino specimen,” the parliamentary committee maintained.

Law enforcement agencies in the last decade have confiscated around 320 imported and 79 exported ivory pieces. International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) in an undercover investigation in 2016 discovered the massive sale of ivory and rhino horns by Australian and New Zealand based auction houses.


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Elephant poachers shot dead by rangers as they tried to steal tusks

A group of five people, believed to be from Uganda, illegally entered Mount Elgon National Park to kill the elephants and steal their tusks on Wednesday.

Two of them were carrying AK-47s.

Three of the poachers were killed and another two injured in the shootout, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said.

‘The officers were on routine patrol inside the park when they encountered five poachers, two of whom were armed,’ KWS said in a statement.

‘A fierce shootout ensued and three of the poachers were gunned down while two others escaped. AK-47 rifles were recovered.’

More than 33,000 elephants are poached each year, which equates to one every 20 minutes.

Poaching has declined sharply in Kenya from a peak in 2012 but it remains a problem, with some 69 elephants and nine rhinos killed last year.

Despite a ban on the international trade in ivory in 1997, African elephants are still being poached in large numbers.

Their tusks are the most sought after, with the ivory being carved into ornaments and jewellery. China is the biggest consumer market for the tusks

Earlier this month, three rhinos were found dead with their horns missing in Meru National Park’s Rhino Sanctuary, in what Kenya’s tourism ministry said was an act of poaching.

Three months earlier, a prominent American investigator of the illegal ivory and rhino horn trade was found dead in his Nairobi home with a stab wound in his neck


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Science news in brief: A new way to track elephants and origins of the frog-killing fungus

With a trunk that produces 110 decibel blasts, elephants are well-equipped for long-distance communication. But it turns out they may be letting their feet do some of the talking.

Researchers have found that different elephant activities create distinct “seismic signatures” in the ground. According to a recent study in the journal Current Biology, these vibrations travel farther through the ground than they could through the air.

It presents a new opportunity for conservationists looking to survey the animals at a distance. Despite international efforts to ban the trade of ivory dating back decades, tens of thousands of African elephants continue to be killed for their tusks every year.


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China Shuts Down Ivory Trade, Wildlife Trafficking Continues

China deserves credit for shutting down the illegal trading in elephant ivory that has contributed in recent years to the killing of thousands of African pachyderms.

But much credit should also go to international nongovernment organizations that have championed the elephants' cause and raised public awareness of it in China.

On Dec. 31, 2017, China, the world's largest ivory market, banned all domestic ivory sales.

John Gruetzner, the managing director of Intercedent, a Toronto-based, Asian-focused investment advisory group, said that the Chinese government's decision to halt the trade was partly "a response to global pressure, including pressure from the United States."

But, says Gruetzner, the decision also came as a result of Chinese leader Xi Jinping's anti-corruption drive as well as pushback from African nations.

According to Gruetzner, Chinese government indifference in recent years had permitted the carving of elephant ivory that contributed to the killing of some 33,000 African elephants a year.


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China support instrumental in reducing elephant poaching in Kenya

By Lenah Bosibori

The Chinese government has completely closed down its domestic ivory market leading to the rise of African elephants in the wild.

In Kenya, – for instance-, the Chinese government has provided state of the art equipment like night goggles and, – camouflage gear, funding, vehicles for patrolling and tents for warmth at night.

Chinese President Xi Jinping made the announcement in September 2015, in a move that was widely celebrated by wildlife conservation organizations across the world. Since then, the Asian nation has taken actions to help reduce poaching and funded conservation efforts in several African countries.

Back in China, some charity organizations have been carrying out campaigns to educate the ordinary citizens on how illegal ivory trade in their country is threatening the African elephant.


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Ad of the Day: Stop Ivory urges UK government to convert trade ban into a law

Stop Ivory, an NGO for the conservation of African Elephants, in its latest campaign highlights how ivory trade, despite being illegal, continues to take place and urges the UK government to convert the ban into law.

The campaign, titled 'Going,Going Gone', was conceptualised by JWT London and features an auction taking place where people are bidding for an ivory tusk. As the bidding concludes and the gavel falls, a gunshot is heard and a spatter of blood hits the buyer's face as she is confronted with the elephant in the room whose tusk has been just cut off for her.

According to Stop Ivory, an elephant is slaughtered every 15 minutes for its ivory.

Stop Ivory further aims to leverage the Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference 2018 in London in October to appeal to all countries that still allow ivory trade to follow the UK’s lead and implement a ban.

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Australian MPs to Probe Links to Illegal Ivory Trade

SYDNEY —

A parliamentary inquiry in Australia is investigating whether the domestic and legal trade in ivory is contributing to the deaths of thousands of African elephants each year.

Members of parliament are investigating if lax regulations are allowing recently poached ivory to be passed off as antiques in Australia. It is illegal to import ivory into Australia, but there are concerns black market ivory is being smuggled into the country.

Campaigners argue there is clear evidence poachers have been using Australia to offload elephant tusks from the illicit trade in ivory into the legitimate art market.

In the past decade, more than 320 imported and 79 exported items made of ivory have been confiscated by Australian authorities.

Labor Senator Lisa Singh is part of the investigating parliamentary committee.

"I think, ultimately, Australians don't want to be contributing to this ongoing trade of rhino and ivory in our country, knowing full well that that leads to the deaths of thousands of elephants and rhinos across the globe," she said.

Britain, the United States, the European Union and China have all limited their domestic trades of ivory and rhino horn in recent years. Australia's parliamentary inquiry will look at a range of options, including a total ban on the sale of all ivory and horn items.

The UK has made exemptions for rare and important items more than 100 years old and for other pieces of art that contain only small amounts of ivory.

It is a move that Australia should follow, said Patricia Anderson, a gallery owner.

"What happens when a family wants to sell grandma's piano with the ivory keys? What happens when someone wants to sell granddad's walking stick, or Aunt Flo's chess set?," she said.

It is estimated that 55 African elephants are killed by poachers each day for their tusks.

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