More African ivory being smuggled in despite ban

NAIROBI: 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.

Wildlife activists had welcomed China’s ban this year on the ivory trade, arguing that 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 on Tuesday 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 was a 60% growth in new ivory items seen for sale in the Myanmar-China border town of Mong La in the past three years and 90% of buyers were 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.

“Demand is still very high in China ... Myanmar has over 2,000km of borderline with China, which is 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 Nairobi with an unexplained stab wound in his neck in February.

He had spent decades tracking animal product movements, mostly from Africa to Asia.