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Ivory trafficking in Africa controlled by a powerful few

– ‘Lack of will’ in Asia –

Wildlife trafficking is the fourth largest international criminal activity after weapons, drug and human trafficking, experts say.

This illegal commerce brings in a staggering 20 billion dollars each year, of which three billion is accounted for by ivory.

According to Allan Thornton, president of the Environmental Investigation Agency, even the most advanced forensic techniques have barely made a dent in the illegal trade.

“All evidence we have seen is that you cannot manage the ivory trade, it cannot be controlled. It’s too powerful, too valuable,” he said.

“Every effort to try to regulate the trade has been a spectacular failure.”

The only conservation measure that worked was when international trade in ivory was banned for a period of eight years beginning in 1989, he said.

At that time, some 70,000 elephants were killed annually and half the population had been wiped out in the previous decade, going from 1.3 million to 624,000, he told reporters.

During the ban, elephants began to rebuild their population in Africa.

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But he said when the ban was partially lifted in 1997 under pressure from Japan, poaching began again in earnest.

A decade later, in 2008, “the endangered species convention (CITES) allowed legal ivory sales from three southern African countries to Japan and China and after that we saw a massive increase in elephant poaching,” said Thornton.

“But all that time Japan faced very little scrutiny, very little analysis and there has been almost no transparency to that activity.”

Some, like Wasser, say the solution is to crack down on the biggest traffickers.

But William Clark, a retired member of Interpol who worked for many years on illegal ivory trafficking, said Asia need to step up and change.

China currently makes up about 70 percent of the world’s demand for ivory.

“There is not the political will in Asia to use the (DNA) tools to fight the importers,” he said.

“Asia is not today bearing up to its responsibilities in addressing this problem. The burden is falling on the shoulders of Africans.”

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