Close ivory markets to end poaching, CS Balala urges the EU

Kenya has asked the European Union to stop all trade in ivory, often falsely labelled as antique and hence legal.

“All legal ivory markets — whether in Asia or Europe — fuel illegal trade, poaching and killing of elephants,” Tourism CS Najib Balala said.

Balala, urged the EU — one of the world’s largest ivory traders — to close its domestic markets. He is in Brussels, Belgium. The CS met senior EU Commission and member state officials on Monday.

Yesterday, Balala met Jyrki Katainen, vice president of the European Commission, to present the case on ivory trade.

Balala also met the Japanese Ambassador to the EU.

“Most countries with significant legal markets have realised there is a clear link between their domestic ivory markets, illegal trade and poaching. We call on the EU and Japan to follow suit,” he said.

Balala said the EU is always seen as the global standard-bearer for promoting and protecting international biodiversity. “We need Europe to join us and become a leader with those countries that are taking action to close domestic ivory markets.”

Balala also communicated the concerns of the Africa Elephant Coalition. Elephant numbers are declining significantly in Africa and Asia.

Every year, at least 20,000 African elephants are killed for their ivory. Kenya’s elephants population is estimated at 35,000. Conservationists says only bold action can save jumbos from extinction.

China, US, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong are taking steps to close their domestic ivory markets.

Other countries have, however, allowed the trade to flourish.

In the streets of European capitals, ivory trade is flourishing as long as it is sold as ‘antique’. This makes it difficult for the law enforcement to easily determine the age of ivory, treated to look ‘antique’.

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HONG KONG MAKES RECORD SEIZURE OF PANGOLIN SCALES, IVORY

HONG KONG — Hong Kong customs officers have intercepted a record 8.3 tons of pangolin scales and hundreds of elephant tusks worth more than USD$8 million combined, underscoring the threat to endangered species from demand in Asia.

Acting on a tip from mainland Chinese authorities, local officials found the haul in mid-January in a refrigerated container labeled as frozen meat from Nigeria, officials said Friday.

They said the smugglers kept the temperature low to better disguise the smell of the illicit cargo. Police arrested two people in connection with the seizure.

It was the largest-ever seizure of pangolin scales in Hong Kong, representing the product of some 14,000 animals, and one of the largest of ivory in a decade, the officials said.

Scales of the anteater-like pangolin have for centuries been highly valued in traditional Chinese medicine. The scales, made of keratin akin to fingernails, are often roasted and ground to a powder before being added into a mix of ingredients to purportedly cure arthritis, promote breast feeding for mothers and boost male virility.

Scientists have designated all species of pangolins as being at risk of extinction. In the last two decades, the number of pangolins worldwide has dropped by about 90 percent.

Ivory tusks are a cherished decorative craft material in Asia, resulting in the devastation of wild elephant populations in Africa.

Under Hong Kong law, the importation and sales of endangered species and their products can be punished by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $1.3 million.

China and Hong Kong have sought to crack down on the illegal trade, although the semiautonomous port and financial center remains a major transit point for endangered species products and other contraband.

Last year, following the outlawing of ivory sales in mainland China, Hong Kong’s legislature enacted a complete ban on the local ivory trade to take effect by 2021, while raising penalties for offenders.

Meanwhile, a court in Thailand this week dismissed charges against a Thai man believed to be a kingpin in the illicit trade, according to Freeland, an organization that works with police to combat trafficking.

Police arrested Boonchai Bach just over a year ago at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport for his alleged involvement in the smuggling of 11 kilograms (24.2 pounds) of rhino horns from Africa worth $700,000. A Chinese man and a Thai wildlife quarantine officer accused of assisting the smugglers were also arrested.

Citing a lack of evidence, the Samut Prakan Provincial Court found Boonchai Bach not guilty of multiple charges relating to wildlife trafficking, Freeland said.

Boonchai was suspected of running a large trafficking network on the Thai-Lao border that spread into Vietnam. According to Freeland, he and his family played a key role in a criminal syndicate that smuggled items including ivory, rhino horn, pangolins, tigers, lions and other rare and endangered species.

“Prosecution of a complex transnational organized crime case like this requires a multi-agency effort to bring all the pieces of the puzzle together,” said Steven Galster, founder of Freeland. “Instead, we saw a kingpin walk free after a narrowly focused case fell apart when the prosecution’s only major witness flipped in front of his boss.”

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Educating Hong Kong youth key to stopping ivory trade, elephant charity says

A Hong Kong-based charity says educating the city’s youth could be key to reducing demand for ivory from endangered African elephants.

Even though Kenya is more than 8,000km away, conservation group The Elephant Foundation (TEF) is gearing up for a tour of Hong Kong schools.

“Seventy per cent of people we talk to don’t understand that an elephant has to die for people to get its ivory,” TEF’s co-founder Colin Dawson says. “The minute people understand the elephant has to die, they don’t want anything to do with it.”
TEF has found that children are particularly good at conveying this message, Dawson claims, describing young people as “a conduit for enthusiasm about keeping these animals alive”.

The charity is preparing for its annual Hong Kong Elephant Week, which this year entails a tour of 14 local schools to promote awareness about the cost of the ivory trade to Africa’s wildlife.

TEF will be joined by Daniel Ole Sambu, a Maasai tribesman who works with the Big Life Foundation, which helps to coordinate cross-border anti-poaching operations in East Africa. James Mwenda, a rhino carer at Ol Pejeta Conservancy, a non-profit based in Kenya, will also take part.

Drawing on their compelling personal experiences, Ole Sambu and Mwenda spark a sense of responsibility for the endangered animals when they speak.
Dawson, 48, says Hong Kong’s relationship with the animals is especially important given the city’s traditional role as a global hub for the hunted commodity.
“The ivory trade is still alive and well in Hong Kong,” Dawson laments. “Traders have been given leeway that’s allowed them to continue trading.”

Unlike in mainland China, where the sale of ivory is banned outright, Hong Kong is implementing its ban in phases. The Protection of Endangered Species of Animals and Plants (Amendment) Ordinance was introduced in May this year by the government’s Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department. But according to the three-step plan, the commercial possession of all ivory will not be made illegal until December 31, 2021.

TEF’s campaign comes hot on the heels of a report by conservation researchers that found this delay is leading directly to an acceleration in the poaching of African elephants. The paper was published in August by the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, and found that seizures of ivory by Hong Kong authorities had risen dramatically since the mainland ban was introduced. It suggested poachers were exploiting the delay as a business opportunity.
Luke Gibson, associate professor of conservation science at the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen and one of the report’s authors, believes that tackling elephant poaching requires addressing both supply and demand.

“Demand reductions are very important for elephant conservation,” he says. “But reductions in demand alone cannot solve the problem.”
Gibson advocates a dual-pronged approach: protecting elephants in their habitat while reducing the appetite for ivory in markets in Asia.

TEF is keen to note it stays active on the first point, stressing it has raised more than HK$4 million (US$510,000) for conservation projects and charities including The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, an orphan elephant rescue programme, and the Big Life Foundation.
“The bottom line is that up to 40,000 elephants are killed every year across Africa,” Gibson says. “Much of that trade is moving through Hong Kong, considered to be the global epicentre of wildlife trade.”

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More African ivory being smuggled into China despite ban -report

NAIROBI, Oct 2 (Reuters) – More African ivory is being smuggled into China from Myanmar and Beijing’s ban on trade in ivory has failed to dampen imports, a report by conservation group Save the Elephants said on Tuesday.

Wildlife activists said they welcomed China’s ban this year on the ivory trade, arguing the step by a country that is the world’s largest importer and end user of tusks was vital to reducing the slaughter of the endangered species.

But it has not stopped what Save the Elephants called the “prolific growth” in trading in a town in the “Golden Triangle” area, where Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet at the confluence of the Ruak and Mekong Rivers, south of China.

There has been a 60 percent growth in new ivory items seen for sale in the Myanmar-China border town of Mong La in the past three years and 90 percent of buyers are Chinese wishing to smuggle the ivory home, the report said.

It gave no separate figures for the period since the ban was introduced.

Myanmar has the world’s largest population of captive elephants, 5,000 in all, but trade in tusks at Mong La and elsewhere increasingly comes from elephants of African origin, the report said.

Myanmar’s government spokesman Zaw Htay was not immediately available for comment.

“Demand is still very high in China … Myanmar has over 2,000 kilometres of borderline with China which is very easy for smugglers to bring ivory across,” said researcher Lucy Vigne.

She co-authored the report with Esmond Bradley-Martin, a prominent American investigator of the illegal ivory and rhino horn trade who was found dead in his home in the Kenyan capital with an unexplained stab wound in his neck in February.

He had spent decades tracking the movement of animal products, mostly from Africa to markets in Asia. (Additional reporting by Poppy McPherson in Yangon Editing by Maggie Fick and Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

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Reports shows rising supply of African ivory despite ban in China

More African ivory is being smuggled into China from Myanmar and Beijing's ban on trade in ivory has failed to dampen imports, a report by the conservation group Save the Elephants said on Tuesday.

Wildlife activists said they welcomed China's ban this year on the ivory trade, arguing the step by a country that is the world's largest importer and end user of tusks was vital to reducing the slaughter of the endangered species.

But it has not stopped what Save the Elephants called the "prolific growth" in trading in a town in the "Golden Triangle" area, where Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet at the confluence of the Ruak and Mekong Rivers, south of China.

There has been a 60 per cent growth in new ivory items seen for sale in the Myanmar-China border town of Mong La in the past three years and 90 per cent of buyers are Chinese wishing to smuggle the ivory home, the report said.

It gave no separate figures for the period since the ban was introduced.

Myanmar has the world's largest population of captive elephants, 5,000 in all, but trade in tusks at Mong La and elsewhere increasingly comes from elephants of African origin, the report said.

Myanmar's government spokesman Zaw Htay was not immediately available for comment.

"Demand is still very high in China ... Myanmar has over 2,000 kilometres of borderline with China which is very easy for smugglers to bring ivory across," said researcher Lucy Vigne.

She co-authored the report with Esmond Bradley-Martin, a prominent American investigator of the illegal ivory and rhino horn trade who was found dead in his home in the Kenyan capital with an unexplained stab wound in his neck in February.

He had spent decades tracking the movement of animal products, mostly from Africa to markets in Asia.

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China seizes 156 mammoth tusks, 406 walrus tusks and over 1,000 antelope horns in huge ivory haul

Chinese customs authorities said they seized 156 prehistoric mammoth tusks from a truck entering from Russia in one of the country’s largest such hauls.

The contraband was seized in late April at a border crossing in northeastern China’s Heilongjiang province bordering on Siberia, but the find was only announced this week by Chinese customs, state media said.

The haul, which also included two elephant tusks and a range of other animal parts, was hidden under a shipment of soybeans.

Eight suspects, including Russians and Chinese, have been arrested, the People’s Daily said.

China banned the sale and processing of elephant ivory last year after having banned its import in 2015.

This, along with global efforts to stamp out the ivory trade to save elephants from extinction, have led smugglers to turn to a stock of ancient mammoth tusks buried mostly in Siberia but also Europe and North America.

The People’s Daily said the shipment as a whole was one of China’s largest involving animal parts in recent years.

The official Xinhua news agency said the inventory included “two elephant tusks, 1,276 antelope horns, 156 mammoth tusks, 406 walrus tusks, 226 narwhal tusks, as well as gall bladders and bear teeth and 320 kilos of sea cucumbers.”

A wide variety of animal parts are sought after in China as traditional medicines or for other uses, while ivory carving is an ancient art in the country.

The latest seizure’s estimated value was 106 million yuan (US$15.7 million), Xinhua said, adding that an investigation was under way.


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Beijing customs foils 13 attempts of smuggling ivory products

Thirteen attempts to smuggle ivory products and parts of endangered animals into China have been foiled by Beijing customs so far this year.

Beijing Customs seized a total of 277 items including antelope horn, wolf tooth, leopard skin, and other parts of endangered species, including 158 ivory products that weigh 17 kilograms, Beijing-based newspaper the Legal Daily reported Monday.

A suspect surnamed Li was recently found carrying two pieces of ivory, weighing 2.5 kilograms and worth 100,000 yuan ($15,608).

Li went through the nothing-to-declare channel at the entry point in China, but was later checked by customs officers.

The anti-smuggling bureau of Beijing customs is investigating the case, said Legal Daily.

According to Beijing customs, all suspects in the 13 cases are Chinese. They are mostly tourists, business visitors, or migrant workers in Africa.

African countries generally fulfill obligations under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to completely prohibit international trade involving wild elephants, the newspaper said.

Smugglers are often driven by the lure of huge profits.

They usually carry the products concealed in travel bags or pockets in clothing, Beijing customs was quoted as saying by Legal Daily.

The Chinese government issued a ban on commercial ivory trade and production in late 2016, which became effective in late 2017.

According to the ban, all means of trade and transport of ivory products to and from China is forbidden.


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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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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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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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Tusks seized from New Alipore house

Alipore: Two elephant tusks weighing around 31kg were seized from a house in New Alipore Block B on Tuesday

One of the tusks is 148cm-long and has a girth of 35cm, while the other has a length of 132cm and a girth of 34cm.

"The tusks were found in the possession of Rabin Paul. We are trying to find out the ownership before taking further action," an officer of the CID said.

The team that raided the New Alipore house following a "specific" tip-off comprised representatives of the CID and the wildlife wing of the state forest department. Calcutta police helped the raiding team.

Possessing or trading in ivory is banned around the world.

A kilogram of uncarved ivory can cost anything between Rs 20,000 and Rs 70,000 in the black market, while intricately carved items can fetch up to crores of rupees.

"Ivory trade within India has come down significantly. Poachers usually target the illegal markets in China, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam and some other Asian countries where the demand for ivory is high. There, ivory is used in personalised nameplates, statues, and other items," a forest department official said.

Elephant are protected under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. Killing the animal or keeping any ivory item can attract at least three years in jail and a fine of Rs-50,000.

India is home to 27,300 of the 50,000-odd Asian elephants found across the world, according to the 2017 count. At the turn of the century, there were 2,50,000 Asian elephants in 13 countries.

More than 80 elephants were killed in India over the past three years.

A report released by the environment ministry states that Karnataka has the largest number of elephants, followed by Assam and Kerala.

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Three held over death of ivory investigator Martin

Police have arrested three men suspected to have been involved in the murder of ivory investigator Esmond Martin.

The three, who were not identified, are being held at the Parklands police station. The arrest comes as investigations indicated that Esmond could have been killed over a land row.

The 75-year-old was found dead in his Karen home on February 4. He had a single stab wound to the neck. His wife Chryssee Martin, who reported the death, found his body after she returned from a walk at 4pm.

Yesterday, Nairobi DCI chief Ireri Kamwende confirmed the arrests. “We have remotely connected them to the crime, but investigations are continuing,” he said.

The Latest findings by police indicate that Esmond was involved in a land dispute with individuals who had forged documents of his land in Karen and intended to kick him out.

A new team of investigators from the homicide section has taken over the probe. The investigators have written to the Lands ministry, seeking details of Esmond’s Karen home to which unnamed people have claimed ownership.

Police have abandoned earlier theories that the murder was a robbery gone bad.

DCI officers have also dismissed claims that Esmond’s murder was related to his work as an ivory investigator and a pending exposé.

Esmond has authored several groundbreaking investigative reports on rhino and ivory smuggling in Kenya and the trade in China, Vietnam, and Laos. He was said to have been working on a new exposé on ivory and rhino horn trafficking.

Esmond, an American geographer, had been travelling the world with his wife and colleagues Lucy Vigne and Dan Stiles. They were on a mission to identify ivory and rhino markets, the traffickers and smuggling techniques.

He was once a UN special envoy for rhino conservation. Among his achievements was helping persuade China to shut down its legal rhino horn trade in 1993 and ivory trade last year.

His last report, ‘Decline in the Legal Ivory Trade in China in Anticipation of a Ban’, was published by Save The Elephants last year.

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Japan’s refusal to stop ivory trade undermines bans elsewhere

Japan has got out of implementing tough measures to clamp down on domestic sales of ivory. The move could undermine the international effort to halt the ivory trade.

Elephants are poached for the ivory in their tusks, which is sold on to consumers in Asian countries like China and Vietnam. As a result, the ivory trade is a significant threat to elephants’ survival.

Last week, the standing committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), the global body that regulates trade in animal parts, met in Geneva. Several countries, particularly from Africa where elephants are poached, lobbied for CITES to force Japan to introduce a national ivory action plan. This would have forced the country to take concrete steps to clamp down, possibly including a ban on the domestic trade in antique ivory.

However, Japan managed to sidestep the proposal.

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CHINA’S VOW TO SHUT DOWN ITS IVORY TRADE BY THE END OF 2017 IS A ‘GAME CHANGER’ FOR ELEPHANTS

BEIJING — China promised Friday to halt its domestic ivory trade completely by the end of 2017, a decision greeted by environmentalists as offering real hope for an end to a poaching crisis that is wiping out tens of thousands of elephants across Africa.

“China’s announcement is a game changer for elephant conservation,” Carter Roberts, president of the World Wildlife Fund, said in a statement. “The large-scale trade of ivory now faces its twilight years, and the future is brighter for wild elephants.”

China said it would begin phasing out the ivory trade in March and cease processing and trading completely by Dec. 31, 2017.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, a New York-based environmental advocacy group, said the news “may be the biggest sign of hope for elephants since the current poaching crisis began,” while Grace Ge Gabriel, Asia director at the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said she was “overwhelmed with joy.”

“This is great news that will shut down the world’s largest market for elephant ivory,” said Aili Kang, Asia director at the Wildlife Conservation Society. “Ivory traffickers have just lost one of their biggest markets.”

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Japan’s refusal to stop ivory trade undermines bans elsewhere

Japan has got out of implementing tough measures to clamp down on domestic sales of ivory. The move could undermine the international effort to halt the ivory trade.

Elephants are poached for the ivory in their tusks, which is sold on to consumers in Asian countries like China and Vietnam. As a result, the ivory trade is a significant threat to elephants’ survival.

Last week, the standing committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), the global body that regulates trade in animal parts, met in Geneva. Several countries, particularly from Africa where elephants are poached, lobbied for CITES to force Japan to introduce a national ivory action plan. This would have forced the country to take concrete steps to clamp down, possibly including a ban on the domestic trade in antique ivory.

However, Japan managed to sidestep the proposal.

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Chasing Ivory Out of Business

Amidst many political issues that have had Westminster in contortions, a move to ban all ivory products has been proposed by the British government. Headed by Prince William, a block on the ivory trade coming to the United Kingdom is being considered by the government. On October 6, Environment Secretary Michael Gove announced plans for the UK to impose a ban on sales of the material in a bid to halt the poaching of elephants. The initial plans that have been put forward will be subject to a 12-week consultation ending in December.

The seriousness of the issue is learned in the number of elephants left in existence. Now just 20,000, the population has decreased by a third, in the last decade alone. Gove asserted: “The decline in the elephant population fuelled by poaching for ivory shames our generation. The need for radical and robust action to protect one of the world’s most iconic and treasured species is beyond dispute.” This message from the UK is important: Britain is currently the largest exporter of legal ivory in the world, namely to Hong Kong and China.

There are four exemptions to this incoming ban: musical instruments, items containing a small percentage of ivory, important historical, cultural, and artistic items, and sales to and betweens museums. The Musicians’ Union, Music Industries’ Association and the Association of British Orchestras’ applauded the exemption of instruments from the ban. Despite ivory not being used in instruments since 1989, various older instruments do contain it, including some of the most prized musical instruments throughout history.

Curbing demand?

Things have progressed faster on the other side of the pond. In June 2016, the US Fish and Wildlife Service published their final revising of the rule under section 4(d) pertaining to African elephants. The new regulation, which constituted an almost total ban of the commercial trade of ivory, came into play already the following month. But the main problem remains with other markets.

By far the largest consumer of ivory products is China. The market is driven by the Chinese middle class who see ivory items as symbols of wealth and status. The country is known to have the largest illegal ivory trade in the world according to a report by Cites. In 2015, after being pressured by campaign groups the government has crushed up to 6.2 tons of seized illegal ivory in an effort to slow down the market. The Minister of the State Forestry Administration Zhao Shucong said at a Beijing event, “we will strictly control ivory processing and trade until the commercial processing and sale of ivory and its products are eventually halted.” But out of all the nations trying to put an end to the business of ivory, internationally China is met with the most scepticism with regards to its commitment.

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Ex-undercover investigator urges more fellow Chinese to fight ivory trade

Undercover investigator Huang Hongxiang could almost smell the grim consequences when his bag carrying a hidden camera was opened by a villager in Vietnam, where almost everyone in the hamlet had a finger in the pie of the illegal ivory trade.

Huang, 29, was in the country last year to document how rampant the illegal business was by meeting smugglers and wearing his pinhole camera.

“If he ever looked closer, things could have been very bad,” the avowed animal-lover said as he stacked up three smartphones to illustrate the gadget’s size.

That was the most dangerous of Huang’s encounters during his career in wildlife crime investigation dating to 2013. His exploits took him to more than a dozen countries spanning Africa, Asia and Latin America.

But Huang retired from the field after deciding to show his face in The Ivory Game, a documentary made last year depicting the blood-soaked paths of elephant poaching and ivory trading. The film was co-produced by movie star and UN climate change ambassador Leonardo DiCaprio.

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Chinese national exported $700K worth of ivory and horns through Mass. shipping business, authorities say

A Chinese national was charged with shipping $700,000 worth of elephant ivory, rhinoceros horns and coral through a Concord-based shipping business in what federal officials are calling a wildlife smuggling ring.

Guan Zong Chen was arrested and extradited in 2015 while traveling from China to Australia and made his first appearance in court when he was arraigned in Boston federal court Monday, according to a U.S. Attorney's Office press release.

Authorities say Chen purchased wildlife artifacts from U.S. auction houses in California, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Texas to resell in Hong Kong.

He allegedly took on a Chinese college graduate as a co-conspirator, who was tasked with traveling to the U.S. to prepare the goods for export.

The graduate would either hand deliver or mail the wildlife goods to a shipping business in Concord, which would then have them repackaged and smuggled into Hong Kong, authorities said.

The wildlife goods were allegedly shipped in packages with documents that falsely stated their contents and value.

Authorities noted one example from 2014 in which Chen visited the United States to meet with the Concord shipper and instructed them to smuggle an ivory-made sculpture by falsely stating it was made out of wood and worth only $50.

Trading in rhinoceros horns, elephant ivory and coral has been regulated since 1976. Exporting certain wildlife goods that were not imported before 1975 and without proper documentation can result in a $650,000 fine and up to two years in prison.

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Conservationists Call for Enforcement Powers to Crack Down on Ivory Gangs

LONDON — Global delegates and campaigners are gathering in Geneva this week for a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, known as CITES. The trade in ivory is high on the agenda as poaching continues to hit elephant populations across parts of Africa. Campaigners want tougher enforcement of regulations to tackle organized criminal gangs behind the trade.

The United Nations estimates the illegal wildlife trade is worth $23 billion per year, with much of that value coming from ivory.

Asia, and especially China, is by far the biggest market.

The London-based Environmental Investigation Agency spent three years infiltrating one of the major smuggling syndicates shipping ivory from east African ports. Investigators identified the southern Chinese town of Shuidong as the major hub for poached ivory, they say 80 percent of ivory destined for China passes through the town.

“[Shuidong] has emerged as probably the biggest hub in the world for the illegal trade of ivory tusks. We first came across the footprints of this group in Tanzania in 2014. The country has lost half its elephants in five years, the biggest loss in Africa,” said Julian Newman, the agency’s campaign director.

As Tanzania began to clamp down on smuggling, the gangs moved to Mozambique. Investigators secretly recorded one of the traffickers, named as "Xie", describing the trade through the Mozambican port of Pemba.

Xie boasted that he is able to move anything through Pemba. He said all the authorities there have been bought off and the customs clearance agent, the customs also gets a share of the money.

Newman said smugglers are operating with impunity.

“There were a few cases where they had some tusks seized. But they were never arrested. And they saw these seizures as a business expense,” said Newman.

Earlier this month, $10 million-worth of ivory was seized in Hong Kong. China plans to ban the trade by the end of 2017.

But John Sellar, former chief enforcement officer at CITES, told VOA via Skype there is too much focus on the trade and not enough on the criminals involved.

“There is speculation involved here, there is undoubtedly money-laundering to my mind. This is a much more complex issue. Organized criminal networks are now major players in all forms or many forms of wildlife trafficking. And you need to bring an organized law enforcement response to that,” said Sellar.

Without that enforcement, campaigners warn the poaching of ivory will likely continue, until the criminal networks are investigated and broken down.

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Hong Kong ivory ban bill makes exceptions for antique objects

Amendments to Hong Kong’s Protection of Endangered Species of Animals and Plants Bill were launched last month in the territory’s Legislative Council.

The bill, which is still in the process of being enacted, aims to ban the import and export of worked and raw ivory by 2021.

However, although the bill is stricter on modern elephant ivory, a clause stipulates that trade in antique elephant ivory from before July 1925 will still be possible.

British Art Market Federation chairman Anthony Browne said: “This indicates there is consensus, following decisions in mainland China and Europe, that there should be special arrangements for antique works of art containing ivory of cultural and artistic significance.”

The 1925 date is used in Hong Kong as it is 50 years before the CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) agreement came into force in July 1975.

Different countries use different dates - for example in the UK and Europe the date used to determine antique works of art containing ivory is 1947. In China the date is 1949, which is the date the People's Republic of China was founded.

At the end of 2016, China announced its plans to issue a ban on the trade in domestic ivory by the end of 2017.

Demand for ivory in Asia has fuelled the illegal trade and the slaughter of thousands of elephants each year in Africa.

UK trade associations representing the art and antiques sector, although supportive of steps to end the illegal trade in poached modern ivory, argue the case to allow the trade in antique objects containing ivory.

Associations believe the trade in genuine antiques and works of art with ivory elements does not support the illicit market for poached ivory.

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