Prince gets friendly with jumbo
BEIJING: Britain’s Prince William highlighted his interest in wildlife conservation on the final stop of his China tour yesterday, feeding baskets of carrots to an elephant in the country’s southwest.
The second in line to the British throne visited an elephant sanctuary, where he met Ran Ran, a 13-year-old female elephant who was discovered in 2005 with a leg wound caused by an iron clamp trap. Handed carrots by the animal’s keeper, Prince William passed them to Ran Ran, who reached for more with her trunk even while her mouth was crammed full.
The visit to Yunnan province, a tropical region bordering Myanmar and Laos that has been the focus of government efforts to stop poaching and reduce conflicts between people and elephants that eat their crops, was organised for the prince to learn how Asian elephants are surviving in the wild.
There are about 250 wild Asian elephants in China, all in Yunnan, according to the province’s forestry administration.
The prince, who is patron and president of British charities that campaign against the illegal trade in ivory, also met villagers in Xishuangbanna prefecture to hear how they are adapting to living in close proximity to wild elephants.
Prince William, who regularly speaks out against wildlife trafficking, was expected to bring up the plight of African elephants, tens of thousands of which have been slaughtered in recent years to meet a surging appetite for ivory in Asia, primarily China.
Last week, China banned ivory imports for one year in the hope that it would help reduce the demand for African tusks and protect wild elephants. There is still no ban on the ivory trade within the country, and conservationists say legal sales provide cover for a thriving black market.
China’s illicit trade in ivory began to explode in 2008, when Beijing was permitted to purchase 62 tonnes of ivory under the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species. The purchase was presented as a way to keep China’s traditional artisan ivory carving industry alive.
After legal pieces started showing up in shops, it soon became a status symbol in China. Its scarcity has turned it into an investment choice akin to gold.