http://www.theguardian.com/env...legal-trade-globally



China and US agree on ivory ban in bid to end illegal trade globally

The two largest markets for illegal ivory agree to enact a nearly complete ban on the import and export of ivory to help reduce the loss of elephants to poaching

Fergus Ryan in Beijing
Saturday 26 September 2015 01.44 EDT Last modified on Saturday 26 September 2015 01.45 EDT

While differences on cyber security and talk of sanctions dominated the headlines for Chinese president Xi Jinping’s visit to the US, the two countries also signed up to a major agreement to end the global trade in ivory.

In a statement released by the White House on Friday, the two countries – which are the largest markets for illegal ivory – said they would enact a nearly complete ban on the import and export of ivory.

The ban would cover “significant and timely restrictions on the import of ivory as hunting trophies” as well as unspecified “significant and timely steps to halt the domestic commercial trade of ivory.”

China is the biggest market for poached ivory with some estimates putting the US in second place.

The announcement follows a decision by China to phase out the legal, domestic manufacture and sale of ivory products in May.

In December, a report released by Save the Elephants and the Aspinall Foundation found that the wholesale price of raw elephant tusks had tripled in just four years since 2010.

Cutting the supply of ivory to the Chinese market is seen as an crucial step in reducing the loss of Africa’s elephants to poaching.


China must act, but Africa needs to take the lead to stop ivory trade
Read more
The White House said the US and China would cooperate with other nations in a comprehensive effort to combat wildlife trafficking.

Support for a ban on the ivory trade is high in China according to a March 2015 survey conducted by WildAid, African Wildlife Foundation and Save The Elephants.

Ninety-five per cent of respondents surveyed in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou said that the government should impose an ivory sales ban. The survey also found that awareness of ivory poaching had increased by 50% since 2012.

Additional reporting by Amber Ziye Wang

http://news.nationalgeographic...a-obama-xi-poaching/



U.S.-China Deal to Ban Ivory Trade Is Good News for Elephants

Agreement signals Beijing will be more aggressive in shutting down industry driven by poaching.


By Rachael Bale, National Geographic
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 25, 2015



The announcement Friday that the United States and China will work together to enact “nearly complete bans” on the import and export of ivory represents the most significant step yet in efforts to shut down an industry that has fueled the illegal hunting of elephants, putting some species at risk.


The agreement between U.S. President Barack Obama and China President Xi Jinping means that China, the world’s largest consumer of ivory, is bolstering its promise last May to crack down on its domestic ivory trade—a claim that left many skeptical.

It’s an industry that has been driven largely by China’s booming middle class, in which some people covet ivory as a status symbol. Wildlife conservation groups say that Asia, and China in particular, are the key cogs in an industry that they say has helped to encourage the slaughter of some 30,000 African elephants a year.

This is the first time that the presidents of the United States and China have made a specific, shared commitment to protect wildlife, the Humane Society of the United States said in a statement.

There is already a near-total ban in the United States on commercial ivory, and new restrictions put in place last year tightened things further. Commercial imports of African elephant ivory, even antiques, were banned, and the restrictions limited the number and types of hunting trophies that could be brought into the country. Individual states, most recently California, have enacted or proposed bills to further restrict ivory sales.

Thursday’s agreement, announced by the White House, is especially significant for China because the Chinese government itself controls—and for years essentially encouraged—the ivory trade in that country.

In 1989, the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES), the international body that sets wildlife trade policy, banned the global ivory trade. And when an experiment allowed Japan to buy a 55 tons of ivory legally in 1999, the resulting rise in smuggling caused China to deem the Japan experiment a failure.

But just a few years later, China began lobbying to be allowed to do the same—to buy a limited amount of ivory to sell, in a tightly controlled market, domestically. China lobbied hard, and in 2008, CITES granted its request.

That year, China legally bought 73 tons of ivory from Africa. About that time, it also built the world’s largest ivory-carving factory and began opening shops to sell ivory. The Chinese government even added ivory carving to its official register of Intangible Cultural Heritage, in an attempt to further legitimize the industry.

National Geographic went inside some of China’s carving factories in 2012 and revealed how China’s actions were promoting the legal and illegal ivory trade. Instead of keeping prices for ivory low, the government raised them, making ivory more profitable to poachers.

Meanwhile, Beijing’s plan to assign legally carved ivory products photo IDs backfired—the photos are so small that an ID used to identify a legal piece of ivory can easily be attached to an illegal one to legitimize it. The photos are so small that it’s hard to tell whether the piece in the photo is the same one being sold.

China’s internal ivory control systems have failed. While 79 percent of Chinese people surveyed by National Geographic Society and GlobeScan said they’d support a total ban on ivory, the survey also found that 36 percent of those surveyed in China wanted to buy ivory and could afford it, while another 20 percent wanted to buy it but couldn’t afford it. (In the United States, 13 percent said they wanted to buy ivory and could afford it, while 22 said they wanted it but couldn’t afford it. The survey also found that a higher percentage of Americans who could afford it had no interest in buying ivory—24 percent, compared with 12 percent in China.)

The illegal ivory trade has been linked to terrorist organizations and organized crime, and this high-level commitment is a sign that wildlife trafficking has been elevated “into the diplomatic discourse among the world’s most important global political leaders,” the Humane Society statement said.


According to the announcement, the United States and China will restrict the import of ivory as hunting trophies, as well as work to restrict the domestic ivory trade. They also said they will expand cooperation in training, information-sharing, public education and law enforcement.

The agreement “should have a profound effect” on elephant poaching, said Peter Knights, the executive director of WildAid, a nonprofit that fights wildlife trafficking. “The fight will carry on, but this is probably the largest single step that could have been taken.”

Knights added that the announcement puts pressure on ivory-loving Hong Kong, where the legal commercial trade often provides cover for those seeking to launder illegal ivory.

This story was produced by National Geographic’s Special Investigations Unit, which focuses on wildlife crime and is made possible by a grant from the BAND Foundation.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the...-visit-united-states



Wildlife Trafficking- The United States and China, recognizing the importance and urgency of combating wildlife trafficking, commit to take positive measures to address this global challenge. The United States and China commit to enact nearly complete bans on ivory import and export, including significant and timely restrictions on the import of ivory as hunting trophies, and to take significant and timely steps to halt the domestic commercial trade of ivory. The two sides decided to further cooperate in joint training, technical exchanges, information sharing, and public education on combating wildlife trafficking, and enhance international law enforcement cooperation in this field. The United States and China decided to cooperate with other nations in a comprehensive effort to combat wildlife trafficking.

China trying to increase the cost for ivory in order to prop up their failing economy. The US fell for it. Shocker...

Show me a Chinaman interested in conservation and I'll show you a conservative liberal.

Sure, like this will work :-(

So how does this effect sports hunted Ivory?

Oh boy, the price just went up. Will they get it when zoos find dead ele with their faces hacked off?

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/bl...ou_need_to_know.html



Three Things You Need to Know about China's and the United States' Announcement on Ivory Trade
Andrew Wetzler
Posted September 29, 2015


Last week Chinese President Xi Jinping travelled to Washington to meet with President Barack Obama. As with all meetings of two heads of State, only each country's top priorities were on the agenda--issues like cyber security, climate change, and the continued instability in Afganistan--so conservationists around the world took note when wildlife trafficking (and, specifically, the elephant ivory trade) made the list. In fact, ivory trade was included in a joint statement from both President Obama and President Xi.

In their statement, China and the United States recognized the "urgency" of combatting wildlife trafficking and promised to cooperate to craft a "comprehensive" effort to combat it. Most significantly, the statement said: "The United States and China commit to enact nearly complete bans on ivory import and export, including significant and timely restrictions on the import of ivory as hunting trophies, and to take significant and timely steps to halt the domestic commercial trade of ivory."*

So, how important is this and what, exactly, does it mean? Here are the three things you need to know:

1. For the most part, the statement reiterates previously announced policies. Both the United States and China have previously announced their intentions to enact "nearly complete bans on ivory import and export" and "to take significant and timely steps to halt the domestic commercial trade of ivory." Over the past two years, the Obama Administration has taken a number of actions to end the United States' contribution to the elephant ivory trade, including an order ending all commercial ivory imports and, most recently, proposed regulations that would greatly restrict exports and interstate trade. For its part, China announced last February that it was placing a one year ban on the import of all carved ivory items into China. A month later, China announced that it would "strictly control ivory manufacturing and trade until commercial manufacturing and sales of ivory product are ceased." In both cases, however, many details need to be filled in. The United States has issued only proposed regulations - they could change or be subject to legal challenge after they are finalized. And China's announcement did not include many details or a timeline.

2. But it is big deal that they were reinforced by both countries' Presidents. While there may not have been a lot of new substance from China or the United States, the significance of these policies being publically affirmed by President Obama and President Xi shouldn't be underestimated. In the United States, the National Rifle Association and its allies in Congress are trying to gut every action the President has taken to protect elephants from poaching, including the recent proposed regulations. Given President Obama's public commitment to these policies, any attempt to attach a pro-ivory trade rider to the U.S. budget would now almost surely be met with a veto. In China, President Xi's commitment to end his country's domestic ivory market will surely move that policy to a top Government priority.

3. Restrictions trophy imports are new and important. There was a bit of new ground broken by the statement. Specifically, both countries announced that they would put in place "significant and timely restrictions on the import of ivory as hunting trophies." This is a completely new statement from China, which had not mentioned trophy hunting in its previous statements on the ivory trade. The United States is currently debating how far to restrict ivory imports as part of the proposed ivory trade regulations referenced above. Trophy imports are significant issues. While relatively small in terms of total volume, if not properly controlled "trophy" hunting can quickly become a cover for commercial imports. For the Chinese, traveling to Africa to hunt elephants is a relatively new phenomenon, so China has a chance to lead the international community in banning trophy imports. The United States has historically imported large numbers of trophies. Indeed, a search of the standard database of wildlife imports reveals hundreds of trophies being imported into the U.S. each year from hunted wild elephants.

______

*Here is the full text of the statement: "Wildlife Trafficking - The United States and China, recognizing the importance and urgency of combating wildlife trafficking, commit to take positive measures to address this global challenge. The United States and China commit to enact nearly complete bans on ivory import and export, including significant and timely restrictions on the import of ivory as hunting trophies, and to take significant and timely steps to halt the domestic commercial trade of ivory. The two sides decided to further cooperate in joint training, technical exchanges, information sharing, and public education on combating wildlife trafficking, and enhance international law enforcement cooperation in this field. The United States and China decided to cooperate with other nations in a comprehensive effort to combat wildlife trafficking."

The concept that legally hunted ivory is being used a a cover for illegal ivory trade into the United States is complete Bullshit.

Jeff

"In the United States, the National Rifle Association and its allies in Congress are trying to gut every action the President has taken to protect elephants from poaching, including the recent proposed regulations. Given President Obama's public commitment to these policies, any attempt to attach a pro-ivory trade rider to the U.S. budget would now almost surely be met with a veto. In China, President Xi's commitment to end his country's domestic ivory market will surely move that policy to a top Government priority."

Gee, the NRA is mentioned. Imagine that.

quote:

Originally posted by Bwana Bunduki:
The concept that legally hunted ivory is being used a a cover for illegal ivory trade into the United States is complete Bullshit.

Jeff

Never let a good crisis go to waste.

quote:

Originally posted by larryshores:
"In the United States, the National Rifle Association and its allies in Congress are trying to gut every action the President has taken to protect elephants from poaching, including the recent proposed regulations. Given President Obama's public commitment to these policies, any attempt to attach a pro-ivory trade rider to the U.S. budget would now almost surely be met with a veto. In China, President Xi's commitment to end his country's domestic ivory market will surely move that policy to a top Government priority."

Gee, the NRA is mentioned. Imagine that.

They probably meant SCI....Sorry...