NZ ivory trade total ban sought

WELLINGTON: An environmental policy analyst is calling on Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage to ban the buying and selling of ivory in New Zealand.

Fiona Gordon, from the Jane Goodall Institute, said New Zealand voted in favour of a global initiative to ban domestic ivory markets two years ago, but no steps had been taken since to shut it down.

‘‘We voted in favour of a historic resolution to close all global domestic ivory markets where they’re contributing to illegal trade and here we have in New Zealand examples of illegal trade going on and we have a completely unregulated market still — so yeah, we’re looking more and more like an outlier on this,’’ Ms Gordon said.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), to which New Zealand is a party, passed the resolution in 2016.

Ms Gordon said while it was illegal to import ivory without a special permit, it frequently passed through the border

‘‘People are quite surprised to hear that New Zealand has a market for ivory — it’s quite a lucrative trade.

‘‘We’re not talking about ivoryhandled cutlery either, we’re talking carvings, 100% ivory which fetches thousands of dollars each.’’

She said ivory that made its way illegally into New Zealand could be sold at places such as auction houses, where there were no requirements for proof of origin or age of the product.

‘‘So if you manage to get some ivory illegally, you could sell it on the domestic market, no problem at all.’’

Yesterday was World Elephant Day. Ms Gordon said an elephant died every 20 minutes, and the ivory trade played a huge role in their deaths.

There are now fewer than 400,000 elephants remaining worldwide.

‘‘The plight of elephants is fairly well documented.’’

The Jane Goodall Institute is urging people to petition Ms Sage for a complete ban on the domestic ivory and rhino horn trade. — RNZ