Elephant conservationists
hopeful that demand for ivory in China is falling amid government clampdown on
ivory sellers, but experts remain wary of poaching
Adam Cruise
Thursday 30 March 2017 11.41 BST
Last modified on Thursday 30 March 2017 12.18 BST
The wholesale price of
raw legal ivory has dropped by almost two thirds since China, the world’s
largest ivory importer and trader, announced plans to close down its domestic
market, according to new research.
Researchers working for
the conservation organisation Save
the Elephants visited Beijing and Shanghai, as well as six cities whose
markets had never been surveyed before: Changzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Shenyang,
Suzhou and Tianjin. The researchers, Lucy Vigne and Esmond Martin, concluded
that the legal trade in ivory is dying.
In early 2014, the
average wholesale price of tusks was $2,100 (£1,700) per kg, the researchers
found. By late 2015, just months after China symbolically burned
half a ton of stockpiled ivory and announced plans to end the domestic trade,
the price had fallen to $1,100 per kg. By February 2017 it had reached just $730
per kg.
The research team also
found that many retail shops were closed or closing with vendors trying to
offload stocks. The legal shops have been sitting on old stocks of worked ivory
trying to sell items for the same prices to recoup the high costs of purchasing
raw ivory.
Some conservationists
have welcomed the latest findings.
“We must give credit to
China for having done the right thing by closing the ivory trade,” said Iain
Douglas-Hamilton, president and founder of Save the Elephants. “There is now
greater hope for the species.”
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