In May, Hong Kong began to crush and burn the stockpile of illegal ivory that its government had seized over the past few years in what CNN’s Arshiya Khullar called, “the start of the world’s largest ivory destruction project.” This burning of an unprecedented 28 tons of confiscated ivory paralleled similar efforts to impede the trade of illegal ivory in the Guangdong Province of China, where the government pulverized more than six tons of ivory last January.
In spite of the destruction of their illegal ivory stockpiles, China harbors the highest rate of ivory smuggling in the world. Since the global ivory ban was affected in 1990, the illegal ivory seizures of Hong Kong alone make up more than a third of all of China’s confiscated ivory. The entirety of the Chinese government’s seizures amounts to 136,100 pounds. In the Guangdong Province, officials recovered over 8,000 pounds from a single fishing boat attempting to smuggle them into China in 2009.
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) levied the global ivory ban in 1990. For a decade before then, poaching levels were so high that an elephant was killed approximately every ten minutes in Africa. But several African countries, including Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia, initially protested the ban, “on the grounds that their elephant populations were healthy enough to support trade” according National Geographic’s Bryan Christy. In exchange for accepting the ban, CITES condoned the sale of 55 tons of the African countries’ ivory exclusively to Japan in 1999. The sale sparked enough demand in China and Japan that CITES, in 2008, again authorized a legal sale, this time of 155 tons, to traders from both countries.
In effect, CITES’ exceptions to its ban have encouraged the trade of illegal ivory throughout China. After the introduction of so many tons of legal ivory into the market, the government has since licensed 35 carving factories, and 130 ivory retail outlets. Dealers in smuggled ivory now benefit from a piqued consumer interest in ivory products, as well as the ability to pass off their ivory as products of the legal sales in 1999 and 2008. According to London’s Environmental Investigation Agency, up to 90% of ivory on the Chinese market is illegal.
Increased trafficking in illegal ivory in China has in turn increased elephant poaching in Africa. A 2014 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that the African elephant had experienced a species reduction of 3%, and that “illegal killing levels [had been] unsustainable between 2010 and 2012.” In Southern Africa, where 210 tons of legal ivory originated, 51% of all elephant deaths today are from poaching.
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ReplyDeleteJosh, this is a very well written post. Stylistically, it is very engaging. I like how you separate your writing into five separate paragraphs instead of one or two large ones. Like your previous post about rabbits, you chose a topic that many people, including myself, weren't aware of. You add credibility to your post by citing statistics from credible sources such as the National Academy of Sciences. Undoubtedly, your post is very strong. However, your last paragraph seemed a little out of place. I thought that adding a couple of more sentences at the end of the paragraph would have made it a smoother conclusion. It just seemed strange to end a post with a statistic. Maybe add your opinion on the situation, or offer some solutions to illegal ivory trading. For example, you could compare the elephants being hunted for their tusks to the American buffalo being hunted to the brink of extinction for its fur. Overall, your post was engaging, interesting, and enjoyable to read.
ReplyDeleteJosh, I completely agree with everything that Brandon writes. First, I really enjoyed reading this, because I had no idea this was an issue - like your post on the rabbits. Second, for the most part, you write very well. There are a few simple grammatical mistakes with pronouns and verb tenses, but these do not detract from the overall effectiveness of your argument.
ReplyDeleteI agree that your last paragraph is a bit odd. I get that you are trying to conclude by solidifying your claim that the sanctioning of ivory sales actually increased illegal poaching. However, I had to work a bit to get that. I think Brandon is right; in this instance you probably shouldn't have ended with this particular statistic. It doesn't really follow from the previous sentence, which means that your reader has to do more intellectual leg work than you want him to have to. The only other thing that would have made this a bit clearer would have been an explanation earlier about where the illegal ivory comes from. I am gathering, based on the evidence that you provide, that all illegal ivory in China originated in Africa. Do hunters not poach walrus ivory to sell in China? Maybe not.