Celebrating a Landmark Year for Elephants

World Elephant Day was created in 2011 as a way to drive attention to the crisis facing the world’s elephants, with as many as 30,000 being poached every year to fuel a booming global market for ivory.

by Jan Vertefeuille and Zhou Fei

August 12, 2016

Today, on the fifth World Elephant Day, we truly have reason to celebrate. In the past two years, three of the world’s largest ivory markets made historic commitments against illegal ivory trade. China, Hong Kong SAR and the United States have committed to ban, or nearly ban, ivory trade within their borders — a turn of events few would have predicted even a year ago.

Consumer demand for ivory fuels the rampant poaching of the world’s remaining elephants. Shifting patterns of global wealth and economic growth have meant that for many consumers, products made from wildlife have become increasingly within reach.

As a result, illegal killing for ivory is decimating populations of elephants in Africa. In recent years, poachers killed a staggering 30,000 elephants each year on average. Tanzania’s Selous Game Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has suffered poaching at such a level that it’s been formally put on the World Heritage in Danger list after losing 90 percent of its elephants.

We are hopeful that the year leading up to World Elephant Day 2017 will be a game changer for elephants.

Here’s what it will take:

· Political leadership. Without question, the most important big win for elephant conservation is the implementation of the US-China joint ivory ban pledge. Presidents Obama and Xi committed to phase out their domestic ivory markets last September. In July 2016, the US enacted its commitment with new federal regulations eliminating nearly all ivory trade in the country. Around the same time, China committed to announcing the timeline of its ban by the end of the year. We urge them to put the ban into force quickly. We respect China’s national heritage of ivory carving but there are non-commercial alternatives for this cultural tradition to be carried forward. No tradition or fashion is worth the downfall of an entire species.

· Public engagement. To tip the scales towards elephant conservation, consumers need to stop buying ivory. Using digital and in-person advocacy and adopting commercial marketing tactics, conservation groups and the private sector are engaging both the general public and targeted consumers with an unprecedented scale and sophistication in an effort to educate and change consumer behavior.

· Global amplification. It’s critical that other consumer markets join the ranks of China and the US so that the ivory market doesn’t simply shift to more poorly regulated countries. We need other governments to follow suit and commit to ending the illegal ivory trade; and to hold other governments accountable when they fail in this task. A recent Save The Elephants market survey found that Vietnam, a country with no history of an ivory carving industry, now has one in place. Singapore’s recently announced intention to consider a domestic ivory trade ban is a great step in the right direction. Hong Kong leaders just announced that they will pursue a strong ban that would shut down their active retail market in a 5-year timeline. That’s too long. A WWF assessment finds that they can do it in less than 2 years.

Does all this sound impossible? A model for solving the elephant poaching crisis may already exist, on the high steppes of the Tibetan Plateau.

Like ivory, shahtoosh — the “king of wools,” known for its unparalleled softness and warmth — became trendy on the global fashion scene in the 1980s. Demand rapidly escalated in places like Europe and the United States. Consumers were oblivious to the devastating origins of this luxury shawl and the Tibetan antelope, or chiru, population was decimated by 90 percent as tens of thousands were slaughtered each year for yarn.

The Chinese government released the White Paper on Tibetan Antelope, which called for a shahtoosh trade ban, and tightened their anti-poaching efforts. Conservationists like WWF and TRAFFIC quickly mobilized to identify major markets and quash them. Supermodels and fashion trendsetters signed on to campaigns as spokespeople; law enforcement increased in supply and demand countries Eventually, a shahtoosh trade ban was imposed in Europe and the US, just like the ivory trade ban happening in the US and China. By the late 1990s, Tibetan antelopes were on a better footing. The shahtoosh shawl had become a tainted emblem of cruelty and excess, thanks to simultaneous assaults on both supply and demand.

If governments, conservation groups and consumers can rally for a species as little known as the Tibetan antelope, we have great hope for what we can do collectively for elephants, one of the most beloved animals on Earth.

Jan Vertefeuille is the senior director for advocacy at World Wildlife Fund in the United States. Zhou Fei is the China director of TRAFFIC, the world’s leading wildlife trade monitoring network.