New ivory worries

Species (Cites) in 1989, to halt the steep decline in elephant numbers. “Wild elephant populations were decimated by the ivory trade. By the time the 1989 Cites ban came into force, Africa’s elephants had been reduced by more than 50 per cent,” says Mark Jones, programmes director at Care for the Wild, an international wildlife charity which commissioned the mammoth ivory report. “Poaching continues to threaten wild elephants. Anything that encourages the continued demand for ivory products, whether mammoth ivory or elephant ivory, could possibly exacerbate this threat.” The report was carried out by Edmond and Chrysee Martin, and paints a picture of a valuable business in extinct animals — worth more than $20 million per year. Their report points out that trade in woolly mammoth ivory has been going on between Russia and the rest of Asia for many years, but declined sharply in the communist years from 1917 to 1991.