New trade curbs slash ivory prices

Trade in illegal ivory is still high, but that could be down to a record number of police raids and panic selling by traffickers as tighter laws come into place in key countries including the US, China, the UK and Hong Kong.

This has led to the price of ivory falling by half recently, according to some reports. Seizures of large-scale illegal ivory shipments were at record levels last year.

Elephant poaching in Africa has declined for the fifth year in a row, but a report from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species warns against complacency as populations continue to fall.

In East Africa, where elephant populations have halved in a decade, poaching has fallen to pre-2008 rates. In southern Africa, elephant numbers are stable or increasing, but in central Africa illegal killing remains high.