23,000 elephants killed a year as ivory demand grows

June 3, 2007

The shopkeeper brushes aside a handful of cream-coloured bangles, pendants and assorted knickknacks. “No, no, no, these are not ivory. These are are cow bone,” he says, before opening a drawer stuffed with dozens upon dozens of milky-white chopsticks, delicately crafted for Khartoum’s growing population of Chinese oil workers and engineers. “This is what you are looking for.” Thousands of elephants are being slaughtered across central Africa – in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad and southern Sudan – to supply Khartoum’s ivory market, according to conservationists. Up to 23,000 are killed each year across Africa. At next week’s meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), Traffic, a conservation group monitoring the illegal trade, will present evidence that East Asian crime syndicates are fuelling ivory trafficking. The illegal trade in ivory is expected to dominate proceedings which begin

tomorrow in The Hague. Signatories to the convention will debate about 40 proposals for regulating markets in everything from orchids to the sawtooth shark. Southern African states, led by Namibia and Botswana, are pushing for relaxation of the ivory ban to allow a one-off sale of seized tusks or limited supply of some products to Asia. They believe their elephant populations have recovered sufficiently to allow a carefully controlled trade. The move is opposed by more than a dozen African states, led by Kenya. They want to set a 20-year minimum on the existing sanctions, arguing that the continuing debate over restrictions stimulates demand. Tom Milliken, director of Traffic’s Africa programme, said that conflict throughout central Africa was having a devastating impact on elephant populations. “In southern Africa, even in Zimbabwe,

which is facing severe economic meltdown, we have an increasing elephant population,” he said. “But it is central Africa which is seeing the biggest impact and it is haemorrhaging ivory.” His study found that an average of 92 seizures of ivory were being made around the world each month, with an increasing number of consignments weighing more than a tonne. He said the Sudanese trade was linked to conflict in Darfur. “It is really the Janjawid – the Darfur forces attacking civilians – that are precipitating the crisis, taking long journeys into Chad and the Central African Republic to slaughter elephants and bring the ivory back, maybe to trade for weapons. “A lot of it is going on to China,” he said. The famous markets of Omdurman – across the Nile from Khartoum – draw thousands of expatriate aid officials, diplomats and oil workers looking for souvenirs. It is ivory that attracts many of the shoppers. Much

of it is worked into chopsticks and name seals, which are popular with Chinese workers. Their numbers have increased in recent years as a result of Sudan’s isolation from the West and its “look East” policy. “The Government came round and told us to stop selling ivory,” said Muhammad el-Ttiap, proprietor of the Folklor Sudane gift shop. “They said that they would come back to buy up the unsold items, but they never did, so we just kept selling it.” Now he says most of the raw ivory is coming from southern Sudan. “The war there has ended and the elephants are returning so now there is plenty of ivory.” Peter H

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