As the US Fish & Wildlife Service reports, in late April officials for the United Arab Emirates and the Republic of Congo destroyed ivory stockpiles, apparently totaling $20 million, in hopes of discouraging wildlife trafficking in their respective provinces. They destroyed the ivory not only to keep it from entering the market, but also to communicate to the public that the governments will not tolerate elephant poaching or illegal trade.
Videos uploaded to YouTube by CCTV and RuptlyTV, included below, capture officials for the UAE in action.
While FWS considers the destruction of the ivory good news, Alex Rhodes, of The Independent, is more pessimistic:
The international trade in ivory has been banned since 1989, which marked the collapse of the then-principal ivory markets in Europe and America and the beginning of a steady decline in demand in Japan.
In the intervening 25 years, governments have accumulated stockpiles of ivory seized from poachers and traffickers, accumulated from naturally dying animals, and recovered from ‘problem animal’ control. This ivory can’t be sold, because of the ban. … This means these ivory stockpiles are worth nothing to governments and the citizens of the countries holding them.
Of course, Rhodes perhaps naively assumes governments and citizens wouldn’t sell the ivory on the black market.
Whether destroying the ivory was a publicity stunt or a sincere gesture, it still marks a shift in the international community’s stance on the ivory trade. Since the US held its first ivory crush, in 2013, now nine countries have done the same: Belgium, Chad, China, France, Hong Kong, Ethiopia, Kenya, and now the Republic of Congo and the UAE.
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