a gigantic cover:
The world trade in ivory, banned 19 years ago to save the African elephant from extinction, is about to take off again, with the emergence of China as a major ivory buyer.Mcarthy/IndependentUk/commondreams 12.Jul.08
Alarmed conservationists are warning of a new wave of elephant killing across both Africa and Asia if China is allowed to become a legal importer, as looks likely at a meeting in Geneva next week.
The unleashing of a massive Chinese demand for ivory, in the form of trinkets, name seals, expensive carvings and polished ivory tusks, is likely to give an enormous boost to the illegal trade, which is entirely poaching-based, conservationists say.
"This is going to mean a return to the bad old days where elephants are being shot into extinction," said Allan Thornton, of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), the group which provided much of the evidence on which the original ivory ban was based in 1989.
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China seriously:
The Chinese government is seriously fighting the illegal ivory trade, the Foreign Ministry said here Thursday when asked to comment on an NGO report critical of China.Xinhua 17.Jul.08
The report is "unfair" and twists facts, said spokesman Liu Jianchao.
The standing committee overseeing the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) decided at a meeting Tuesday in Geneva to give right to China to import African elephant ivory under strict conditions.
Members of the committee voted by a majority that China qualified for the import because it has dramatically improved its enforcement of ivory rules.
Liu said the Chinese government attaches great importance to the protection of wild animals including elephants and has promulgated a series of laws and regulations to severely crack down upon illegal activities of trafficking and sales of wild animals and related products.
