http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...of-re_b_5745994.html


There is an excellent 15 minute video in the attached link.

Thanks for sharing Kathi

I didn't realize there was such a heavy use of ivory for religious icons. The main narrator got it right when he said that you will not be able to stop poaching on the ground in Africa as there is too much poverty and corruption. You have to go to the main source of the demand, which is the Chinese government.

quote:

I didn't realize there was such a heavy use of ivory for religious icons.

There was an article in National Geographic a while back that featured this very thing. The appetite is incredible.

We are screwed and so are the elephants

Same story as the tiger.

Credit to the Dalai Lama that he passed a decree for the Buddhist monks to stop using tiger skin ceremonial garments. They burnt those skins about 10 years ago and now it is the Chinese & Vietnamese tiger bone trade that is the problem.

Had a date with a Chinese immigrant woman the other day who insists that rhino horn was the only thing that could cure her of a respiratory infection when she was younger.

She acknowledged how expensive it was. Though you have to wonder about the amount of fake rhino powder on the market, too. How do you verify it's real rhino horn powder?

Old habits die hard. And when affluence makes things available to the masses that were only available to the elite, the masses will want it, too. Obviously, economically, Mao style Communism (and before that family dynasties) was good for the world.

I wonder if all the emphasis on demand is really correct. The massive elephant poaching going on by terrorist organisations to fund their operations has not been spurred by a sudden growth in end users. They need revenue, and ivory is providing it. The fact that there is a market for their illicit product, I would think is secondary?