Online elephant skin trade fuels slaughter in Myanmar

Customers inspecting a chunk of dried elephant skin and an ivory tusk at a traditional medicine shop in Mon State, Myanmar.

An emerging online market for elephant skin in China is threatening the survival of the animals in neighbouring Myanmar as poaching intensifies to meet demand, conservationists warned yesterday.

Myanmar has watched with alarm as the number of slain elephants found in the country's forests rises each year, with many blaming the trade in the mammal's hide.

The biggest market for the products is in China, where the tough skin is ground up and used to treat stomach or human skin ailments, or sold as jewellery in the form of blood-red beads and pendants.

The items are increasingly advertised and sold on the Internet, according to the British-based charity Elephant Family.



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Asian elephants said at risk from Chinese demand for skin

Bangkok, Apr 24 (AP/UNB) — A report by a British-based conservation group says rising Chinese demand for products made from elephant skin is driving poaching and posing a threat to Asia's wild herds even greater than the ivory trade.

The group Elephant Family says the threat is currently greatest in Myanmar, but warns that the Asian elephant could become extinct in half the areas where it ranges if the problem escalates. It says the threat exceeds that from the ivory trade because poachers are targeting any elephant, not just those with tusks.

The report's authors say their research shows that the elephant's skin is ground into powder and sold in China as a cure for stomach ailments, as well as being fashioned into beads for necklaces, bracelets and pendants.

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