topic: Ivory

topic: Ivory

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Wildlife trafficking gradually returns after pandemic lull, mostly by sea
- Bulk shipments by sea accounted for most of the illegal wildlife parts seized by authorities around the world in 2022.
- The data, from U.S.-based nonprofit C4ADS, also show that seizures of elephant ivory, rhino horn and pangolin scales haven’t yet returned to pre-pandemic levels.
- However, the decline isn’t uniform across all countries, with China’s late reopening from the pandemic this year indicating there might be an increase in trafficking in 2023, especially of ivory.
- C4ADS has called on law enforcement officials to focus on investigating wildlife seizures within their areas of authority and increase their efforts to detect more illegal shipments passing through known trafficking routes in the maritime transportation sector.

New protections for sharks, songbirds, frogs and more at CITES trade summit
- The 19th meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, known as CoP19, ended Nov. 25 in Panama, after two weeks of negotiations.
- Member states agreed on new trade regulations for more than 600 animal and plant species, including the protection of sharks, glass frogs, turtles, songbirds and tropical timber species.
- Experts say that while these new regulations are essential, implementing and enforcing the rules will have the most significant conservation impact.

As poachers poison wildlife, Zimbabwe finds an antidote in tougher laws
- Poisons like cyanide can be a deadly weapon for poachers, allowing them to kill dozens of animals without needing access to firearms or the backing of criminal syndicates.
- Wildlife poisoning is on the rise across Africa, targeting elephants as well as pushing endangered vultures toward extinction.
- A new study says Zimbabwe, which a decade ago witnessed some of the deadliest mass poisonings of elephants, has developed a sound basis for curbing poisonings by tightening laws to criminalize intent to use poison to kill wildlife.
- In addition to laws and renewed efforts to improve intelligence gathering, private players are pushing to ensure better law enforcement, resulting in more prosecutions and deterrent sentences.

Myanmar wildlife trade remains opaque, despite focus on border hubs
- Myanmar supports some of the last refuges of rare and threatened species, such as tigers, leopards and pangolins, but lax law enforcement and porous borders make it a hotbed of illegal wildlife trade, imperiling the country’s remaining biodiversity.
- While a lot is known about flagrant trade in notorious markets in towns bordering China and Thailand, much of the trade with Myanmar remains opaque, new research shows.
- One-quarter of prior studies on the country’s wildlife trade have focused on just two border trade hubs, while little is known about patterns of domestic wildlife trade and consumption.
- The researchers call on authorities to establish a central wildlife crime database to promote data sharing of enforcement and research knowledge; further research on poaching motives; and improved enforcement of existing wildlife laws.

Twenty years since a massive ivory seizure, what lessons were learned? (commentary)
- In late June 2002, a container ship docked in Singapore with a massive shipment of ivory, which was seized.
- It was the largest seizure of its kind since an international ban on the ivory trade had come into force in 1989, and the lessons learned from it would change the way the illegal wildlife trade was investigated and tackled.
- But it’s unfortunate that some of the biggest lessons from that event still have not been put into practice, a new op-ed argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Cash-strapped Zimbabwe pushes to be allowed to sell its ivory stockpile
- Zimbabwe is continuing to push for international support for selling off its stockpile of elephant ivory and rhino horn, saying the revenue is needed to fund conservation efforts.
- Funding for the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authority comes largely from tourism-related activity, which has virtually evaporated during the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving the authority with shortages of staff, equipment, and funds for communities living adjacent to wildlife.
- But critics say allowing the sale of the 136 metric tons of elephant ivory and rhino horn that Zimbabwe is holding (mostly from animals that died of natural causes) will only stoke demand and lead to a surge in poaching.
- They point to similar surges following other one-off sales in 1999 and 2008, but some observers say these were unusual circumstances (the latter sale coincided with the global recession), and that a poaching spike won’t necessarily follow this time around.

Ivory from at least 150 poached elephants seized in the DRC raid
- A three-year investigation has led authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo to 2 metric tons of ivory hidden in a stash house in the southern city of Lubumbashi.
- The tusks are valued at $6 million on the international market and estimated to have come from more than 150 elephants.
- The three people arrested in the May 14 raid are allegedly members of a major wildlife trafficking ring in the Southern African region.

‘A risky business’: Online illegal wildlife trade continues to soar in Myanmar
- A new report from WWF shows that trade in protected wild animals and their body parts in Myanmar via the social media platform Facebook rose by 74% in 2021 compared to the previous year.
- The scale of the online trade, the purpose of the trade, and the species seen in the trade are all of major concern in terms of impacts on biodiversity and the potential risks to public health from disease transfer, according to the report.
- Posts advertising live civets and pangolins as wild meat, as well as posts referring to their commercial breeding potential are a particular concern, argue the report authors. Both species are considered to be potential vectors in passing zoonotic diseases to humans.
- The report calls on online platforms to do more to monitor their platforms and take swift action, and for greater involvement and collaboration from multiple sectors to strengthen enforcement, disrupt the illegal wildlife trade, and increase awareness of the health risks posed by illegally traded wildlife.

Can we plan for a future without trophy hunting? (commentary)
- Proposed legislation in Britain to ban the import of hunting trophies like horns, antlers, and tusks enjoys popular support.
- But in Africa, rural communities often rely on revenue from trophy hunting to support development and conservation projects.
- In response to a recent Mongabay commentary, “UK trophy hunting import ban not supported by rural Africans,” writer Merrill Sapp argues that it’s possible to have both development and healthy elephant populations, without hunting.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Cold case: Half-hearted prosecution lets ivory traffickers escape in Uganda
- More than three years since Ugandan authorities seized a shipment of nearly 4 tons of elephant ivory and pangolin scales, no one has been prosecuted for the trafficking attempt.
- Two Vietnamese nationals were arrested in the bust, but they vanished after being granted bail.
- Wildlife trade investigators have questioned the commitment of the Ugandan authorities to pursue the case, saying their efforts to find the suspects since then appear half-hearted at best.
- They add the failure to prosecute this case is a missed opportunity to break up a major trafficking network moving wildlife parts from East and Central Africa to Southeast Asia.

In Nigeria, a decade of payoffs boosted global wildlife trafficking hub
- An investigation by Nigeria’s Premium Times and Mongabay has found evidence of systematic failure by Nigerian law enforcement and the judicial system to hold wildlife poachers and traffickers accountable.
- Our analysis of official wildlife crimes data, supported by numerous interviews with prosecutors, environmental campaigners and traders at wildlife markets in Lagos, Cross River, Abuja, Ogun and Bauchi states, found a near-total reliance on minor out-of-court settlements in trafficking cases.
- Despite numerous high-profile, multimillion-dollar trafficking busts at Nigeria’s ports since 2010, no one has faced jail terms as a result.
- The reliance on informal payments to local officials encourages corruption, experts say, while sporadic crackdowns on wildlife markets have not stopped traders operating in the country’s commercial capital.

Links between terrorism and the ivory trade overblown, study says
- As killings of elephants in Africa spiked in the early 2010s, some conservation organizations claimed the ivory trade was financing armed groups like al-Shabaab and the Lord’s Resistance Army.
- According to a study published in Global Environmental Politics, those ties were overstated and strategically pushed by NGOs in order to attract funding for anti-poaching efforts.
- Despite shaky evidence for some of the claims, they helped frame wildlife trafficking as a global security issue and were subsequently repeated by policymakers from the U.S. and elsewhere.
- The study said the confluence of conservation and security policy has had “material outcomes for marginalized peoples living with wildlife, including militarization, human rights abuses, enhanced surveillance, and law enforcement.”

Wildlife trade hub Vietnam is also hub of impunity for traffickers, report says
- Only one in every seven wildlife seizures made in Vietnam in the past decade has resulted in convictions, a new report by the U.K.-based Environmental Investigation Agency has found.
- Low numbers of arrests and prosecutions highlight problems of weak enforcement and a lack of coordination between law enforcement agencies, the researchers said.
- Three-quarters of the shipments originated from African countries, they found, with numerous large-scale seizures indicating transnational organized crime.
- With pandemic-related restrictions easing, the worry is that the cross-border wildlife trade will come roaring back even as Vietnam struggles to follow up on investigations into past and current seizures.

In Mozambique, mystery of tuskless elephant points to poaching as the culprit
- The civil war that caused a steep drop in elephant numbers in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park also led to tusklessness becoming the norm among its female elephants, a recent study found.
- Only about 200 of an estimated 2,500 elephants living there survived the ravages of the 15-year-long war during which poachers targeted tusked elephants for ivory.
- After the civil war, the number of tuskless females tripled in Gorongosa.
- Scientists agree on the far-reaching consequences of this “artificial selection,” but how the genetic trait is passed on from one generation to the next is still being investigated.

As seizures of poached giant clams rise, links to ivory trade surface
- A new report released by the Wildlife Justice Commission identifies the giant clamshell trade as a “cause for concern.”
- It suggests the trade could have links with organized crime, and that it could also be endangering elephants since clamshells are a viable substitute for elephant ivory.
- China and Japan are noted as potential markets of concern in the giant clamshell trade.
- Very little is known about the giant clamshell trade, which has prompted experts to call for more investigations into the issue.

Tanzania’s “Ivory Queen” denied release after appeal
- Judge sends case of trafficking ringleader Yang Fenglan back to trial court.
- Case is among Africa’s biggest wildlife trafficking convictions, involving 860 elephant tusks worth $6 million.
- Yang and two co-accused remain in jail but will have opportunity for new appeal.
- Tanzania’s Director of Public Prosecutions tells Mongabay the case is a message to the world.

Poaching declines in Tanzania following prosecution of ivory trafficking ringleaders
- Taskforce on Anti-Poaching says it penetrated 11 criminal syndicates in five years.
- Conservation groups say wildlife crime networks have moved from East to West Africa.
- Government says elephant populations have grown to 60,000 from 43,000 in 2014.
- Tanzania targets ‘zero-poaching’ after thousands of arrests.

Unregulated by U.S. at home, Facebook boosts wildlife trafficking abroad
- The world’s largest social media company, Facebook, regularly connects wildlife traffickers around the world, and advocates are stepping up the pressure to address the problem in the company’s home country.
- Proposed U.S. legislation targets a decades-old law that protects online companies’ content as free speech on their platform. Advocates say wildlife crime is not speech, and that online companies lack the regulation that other “real-life” companies must follow.
- Trafficking has increased since Facebook chose to self-regulate in 2019, researchers say. The company could cooperate with law enforcement or conservationists, but it has rarely chosen to do so.
- Meanwhile, researchers are gathering more and more evidence that wildlife trafficking is one of the biggest threats to global biodiversity.

Wildlife trafficking, like everything else, has gone online during COVID-19
- Regional and national reports show a decline in illegal wildlife trade activities in Southeast Asia in 2020, with operations down by more than 50% across the most-traded animals.
- Despite the decrease, experts say traders have shifted from face-to-face interactions and increased their presence on online platforms.
- Authorities also reported confiscating caches of stockpiled animal parts, indicating that the trade continues amid the pandemic. Traders may be waiting for looser border controls to carry on with business, experts say.
- While these trends suggest that the trade will bounce back in a post-COVID-19 era, experts suggest strengthening enforcement collaboration, improving wildlife laws, and increasing awareness of the health risks posed by illegally poached wildlife.

Tale of two traffickers is a rare spell of Congolese conservation convictions
- Serial elephant poacher Rombo Ngando Lunda was given a 20-year prison sentence and fined $25,000 in a landmark ruling in March.
- Wildlife trafficker Salomon Mpay sentenced to just two years and a $2,000 fine after being caught with 35 kilos of ivory and 2.5 metric tons of pangolin scales.
- Lawyers for conservation groups whose investigations led to Mpay’s arrest are appealing what they say is a lenient sentence.

Fake it till you save it? Synthetic animal parts pose a conservation conundrum
- Thanks to technological advancements, it’s now possible to make synthetic versions of animal parts like rhino horn, elephant ivory, and big cat fur, demand for which is contributing to the extinction crisis.
- Yet this practice is controversial, as some conservation groups assert that selling synthetic parts could actually promote more poaching.
- Proponents of the strategy say more conversations are needed around this possibility, including looking at the issue from an economic perspective.

Nigeria emerges as Africa’s primary export hub for ivory, pangolin scales
- Increased political buy-in for law enforcement and interdiction efforts at ports in East Africa have pushed wildlife smuggling westward to Nigeria.
- Between 1998 and 2014, the top two countries associated with ivory seizures were Tanzania and Kenya. Since 2014, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo have overtaken them.
- Corruption at the ports, the involvement of influential politicians, and rural poverty make Nigeria an attractive waypoint for smugglers.

Is that ivory from an elephant or a nut? A new guide shows how to tell
- The guide was produced by WWF, TRAFFIC, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the CITES Secretariat.
- The last update was in 1999, with this version including high-resolution, detailed photographs that show the differences between various forms of ivory and other substitutes.
- A section examines online marketplaces and auctions, a growing branch of the illegal ivory trade.
- Translations will be made into English, Spanish, and French, with CITES-compliant governments tasked with distributing it to law enforcement and customs officials.

Calls for swift action as hundreds of elephants die in Botswana’s Okavango Delta
- As many as 400 elephants have died in Botswana’s Okavango Delta since March, wildlife experts say.
- Government authorities say poaching, poison and anthrax have been ruled out as the causes of death.
- Conservationists have questioned the government’s handling of the mass deaths and rejection of assistance to test and investigate.
- Botswana has the largest elephant population of any country, with the resultant rise in human-animal conflicts leading the government to rescind some protections for the animals.

Podcast: Listening to elephants to protect Central Africa’s tropical forests
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast we take a look at a project that aims to preserve the rainforests of the Congo Basin in Central Africa and the biodiversity found in those forests by focusing on elephants and their calls.
- As a research analyst with the Elephant Listening Project, Ana Verahrami has completed two field seasons in the Central African Republic, where she helped collect the behavioral and acoustic data vital to the project. She joins the Mongabay Newscast to explain why forest elephants’ role as keystone species makes their survival crucial to the wellbeing of tropical forests and their other inhabitants, and to play some of the recordings informing the project’s work.
- One of the two existing African elephant species, forest elephants are native to the humid forests of West Africa and the Congo Basin. The forest habitat they rely on has also suffered steep declines in recent years, with one 2018 study concluding that at current rates of deforestation, all of the primary forest in the Congo Basin could be cleared by the end of the century. As Mongabay’s contributing editor for Africa, Terna Gyuse, tells us, the chief threats to the Congo Basin’s rainforests are human activities.

Expansion of a famous elephant park holds out hope for Africa’s big tuskers
- Eight of Africa’s remaining 30 “big tuskers” live in South Africa’s Tembe Elephant Park.
- The park is set to be expanded by up to 26,000 hectares, allowing its herd of 200 to grow.
- The park is owned and managed by local communities.

Study tracks first incursion of poachers into ‘pristine’ African forest
- Researchers logged the first evidence of elephant poaching in a remote, pristine section of Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in the northern Republic of Congo.
- The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, also revealed unique behavior changes between gorillas and chimpanzees as a result of selective logging.
- The research highlights the need to incorporate the results of biodiversity surveys into plotting out the locations of areas set aside for conservation.

Malawi sentences pangolin smugglers, cracks down on wildlife crime
- Two Malawian nationals arrested in May and suspected of being part of one of Africa’s largest transnational wildlife trafficking syndicates have now been sentenced to three years in prison by a Malawian court.
- The suspected kingpin of the trafficking network, a Chinese national named Yunhua Lin, was arrested in August this year following a three-month manhunt and is scheduled to appear in court on Sept. 11.
- Lin’s wife, Qin Hua Zhang, and eight others who had been arrested during the May raids are due in court on Sept. 12, and further hearings have been scheduled throughout the month.

Bid to allow sale of ivory stockpiles rejected at wildlife trade summit
- A proposal by Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia that would have allowed them to sell their ivory stockpiles has been rejected by 101 votes to 23 at the CITES wildlife trade summit taking place in Geneva.
- Populations of elephants in Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa are placed in Appendix II of CITES, which allows commercial trade in registered government-owned ivory stocks, with the necessary CITES permits in place.
- But such sales are severely restricted by a legally binding annotation to Appendix II, which Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe’s proposal sought to amend.
- Several other African countries opposed the proposal, saying that the one-off sales permitted under the annotation in 1997 and 2008 had failed and sparked a poaching frenzy, negating the argument that flooding the market with legal ivory would drown out the illegal trade.

Australia to ban domestic trade in elephant ivory and rhino horn
- Australia has formally announced a plan to ban its domestic trade in elephant ivory and rhino horn.
- Sussan Ley, the country’s environment minister, said she would meet with ministers in November to ensure that steps are taken to ban domestic trade in ivory and rhino horn all jurisdictions.
- At the ongoing CITES meeting, a coalition of 30 African elephant range countries tabled a proposal asking all domestic markets of ivory to be closed. But the proposal was voted down.

‘Let us trade’: Debate over ivory sales rages ahead of CITES summit
- Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe want to sell off their ivory stocks to raise money for conservation.
- Growing human and elephant populations in these southern African countries have provoked increased human-wildlife conflict, and the governments see legal ivory sales as a way to generate revenue for conservation and development funding.
- Other countries, most notably Kenya, oppose the proposal, on the grounds that previous legal sales stimulated demand for ivory and coincided with a sharp increase in poaching.

Angola pledges $60m to fund landmine clearance in national parks
- The Angolan government has announced a $60 million commitment to clear landmines in Luengue-Luiana and Mavinga national parks in the country’s southeast.
- The region is part of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area — home to incredible natural biodiversity, but also one of the most heavily mined regions of Angola.
- International funding for landmine clearance has fallen by 80 percent over the last 10 years, and without new funding Angola will miss its target of clearing all landmines by 2025.
- The HALO Trust, a demining NGO, and the Angolan government hope that clearance of landmines will stimulate conservation in southeastern Angola and provide alternative livelihoods such as ecotourism to alleviate poverty and diversify the country’s economy away from oil.

China seizes over 2,700 elephant tusks in massive bust
- In one of the biggest busts in recent years, Chinese officials have seized 2,748 elephant tusks weighing more than 7 tonnes, the General Administration of Customs announced earlier this week.
- The ivory was confiscated during a joint operation by customs authorities and police across six provinces on March 30.
- Customs authorities added that since the beginning of 2019, they had filed 182 cases of smuggling of endangered wild species, seized more than 500 tons of endangered wildlife and their products, and arrested 171 suspects, disrupting 27 criminal gangs.
- China instated a ban on the domestic trade in elephant ivory in 2018.

Kenya on the brink of acquitting ivory trafficker number four (commentary)
- On April 11, Chief Magistrate Francis Kyambia is set to make judgement in a Mombasa, Kenya court on the ivory trafficking prosecution against Ephantus Mbare Gitonga. A not-guilty verdict, if rendered, will be the fourth consecutive acquittal in a major ivory case in the last fifteen months.
- There will be many who find this hard to believe: Surely the only acquittal was that against Feisal Mohamed Ali in August 2018? He had originally been convicted in July 2017 for being in possession of 2.2 metric tons of ivory and sentenced to 20 years in jail with a $200,000 fine to boot. The widely celebrated finding was overturned in August of last year when Lady Justice D.O. Chepkwony of the Kenya High Court reached the decision that the initial ruling was flawed on multiple grounds.
- There are, however, two other acquittals in major ivory cases that quietly came and went with nary a whisper of surprise, dismay, or disillusionment. And now clearing agent Ephantus Mbare Gitonga is on the verge of yet another acquittal.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Elephant in the room: Botswana deals with pachyderm population pressure
- The government of Botswana is considering measures to rein in its elephant population to address the problem of human-elephant conflicts.
- These proposed measures include a resumption of big-game hunting and culling of elephants, which number about 130,000 in Botswana — the biggest population of the pachyderm in Africa.
- An existing solution is a transboundary conservation area that straddles the borders between Botswana and Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Angola.
- Given that many of the elephants inside Botswana come from these other countries, officials say having wildlife corridors in the border areas could ease the population pressure inside the country.

Trouble in Botswana’s elephant paradise as poaching said to rise
- Botswana is home to 130,000 elephants, a third of Africa’s total elephant population, and has gained a reputation as a sanctuary for the threatened species.
- The country has a hunting ban and strict anti-poaching measures in place.
- But a report based on an aerial survey carried out last year appears to show an alarming increase in poaching, notably of male elephants for their typically larger tusks — a finding disputed by the government.
- The government is considering ending the hunting ban to allow the trophy shooting and culling of elephants to get their population under control.

Chinese ‘Queen of Ivory’ sentenced to 15 years in jail for tusk trafficking
- Tanzania has sentenced Yang Fenglan, a Chinese national dubbed the “Queen of Ivory,” to 15 years in prison for smuggling the tusks of more than 350 African elephants over several years.
- Yang, 69, was arrested in 2015, along with two Tanzanian men, and charged with trafficking 860 ivory pieces, which according to authorities were worth at least $5.6 million.
- On Feb. 19, a court convicted the three of organizing a criminal syndicate and sentenced them to 15 years each. It also ordered them to pay a fine double the market value of the ivory they were accused of smuggling, or face an additional two years in prison for failing to do so.
- Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said in a press conference that China would support Tanzania’s investigation and handling of the case.

Audio: IUCN’s Inger Andersen: “Women represent 3.5 billion solutions”
- On today’s episode, we talk with the Director General of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Inger Andersen.
- Founded in 1948 and headquartered in Switzerland, the IUCN is probably best known for its Red List of Threatened Species, a vital resource on the conservation statuses and extinction risks of tens of thousands of species with whom we share planet Earth. But the IUCN does much more than just maintain the Red List, as Inger Andersen, the organization’s director general, explains.
- Andersen also discusses how updates are made to the Red List (and what updates we can expect to the List in 2019), the importance of empowering women in conservation and sustainable development, the need to tackle unsustainable production and consumption patterns, and why the 2020 installment of the IUCN’s World Conservation Congress will be perhaps the most important yet.

China busts major ivory trafficking gang following EIA investigation
- In 2017, an undercover operation by the watchdog group Environmental Investigation Agency identified three men involved in smuggling elephant ivory from Africa to the little-known town of Shuidong in China, which, according to the trafficking syndicate, receives up to 80 percent of all illegal ivory from Africa.
- Following EIA’s report, Chinese enforcement authorities raided several places in Shuidong and surrounding areas and arrested one of the three men who received a jail term of 15 years. A second member of the gang voluntarily returned to face trial and was jailed for six years.
- The third identified member of the syndicate has also been repatriated to China from Nigeria under an INTERPOL Red Notice and will face trial in China.
- In addition to these three men, enforcement actions have also led to the conviction of 11 suspects by the local court, with jail terms ranging from six to 15 years.

Audio: Rhett Butler on how sound can save forests and top rainforest storylines to watch in 2019
- On today’s episode, we welcome Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Butler to discuss the biggest rainforest news stories of 2018 and what storylines to watch in 2019. He also discusses a new peer-reviewed paper he co-authored that looks at how bioacoustics can help us monitor forests and the wildlife that call forests home.
- This year marks the 20th anniversary since Rhett Butler founded Mongabay. Subscribers to our new Insider Content Program already know the story of how he founded Mongabay.com two decades ago in his pajamas. At first, Mongabay was a labor of love that Rhett pursued in his spare time, after coming home from his day job.
- Mongabay has come a long way since then, with more than 350 contributors covering 50 countries and bureaus now open in India, Indonesia, and Latin America. Overseeing this global environmental news empire provides Rhett with a wealth of insight into the science and trends that are shaping conservation.

Vietnam’s illegal ivory market continues to thrive, report finds
- Over two surveys conducted between November 2016 and June 2017, TRAFFIC’s researchers found more than 10,000 ivory items being offered on sale across 852 physical outlets and 17 online platforms, suggesting an ivory market that has continued to thrive over the past few decades.
- Physical retail stores in Ho Chi Minh City and Buon Ma Thuot had the highest number of ivory items for sale, the surveys found, but two villages, Ban Don and Lak, had a disproportionately high number of items on sale compared to the number of stores. Among the online platforms, social media sites had the highest number of posts offering ivory for sale.
- The ivory markets in Vietnam are, however, changing constantly. TRAFFIC’s researchers not only found ivory for sale in places where previous studies had found none, they also observed shifts in markets within their two surveys, over just an eight-month period.
- The surveyors also found that the sellers were aware that selling ivory was illegal, but “it does not deter them from offering it openly for sale in Vietnam,” they said.

Singapore proposes total ivory ban, calls for public feedback
- Singapore’s Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) has proposed a total ban on the sale and purchase of all forms of elephant ivory products in Singapore.
- Display of elephant ivory in public would also be banned, except when used for educational purposes, such as in museums or zoos.
- AVA has opened its proposal to public comments until Dec. 27 this year.

New research measures impacts of China’s elephant ivory trade ban
- Research released last month by WWF and TRAFFIC, the wildlife monitoring network, found that there has been a substantial decline in the number of Chinese consumers buying ivory since the ivory trade ban went into effect on December 31, 2017. But there is still work to be done to diminish both the supply and demand for elephant ivory in China.
- Of 2,000 Chinese consumers surveyed, 14 percent claimed to have bought ivory in the past year — significantly fewer than the 31 percent of respondents who said they’d recently purchased ivory during a pre-ban survey conducted in 2017. Some ivory sales have simply gone international, however: 18 percent of regular travelers reported buying ivory products while abroad, particularly in Thailand and Hong Kong.
- TRAFFIC reports that all of the formerly accredited (i.e. legal) ivory shops the group’s investigators visited in 2018 have stopped selling ivory. But the illegal ivory trade has not been so thoroughly shut down. TRAFFIC investigators also visited 157 markets in 23 cities and found 2,812 ivory products on offer in 345 separate stores.

Wildlife detectives link smuggled African elephant ivory to 3 major cartels
- By matching DNA from elephant tusks found in major illegal ivory shipments, and using information on the ports of origin of the shipments, researchers have pinpointed three major cartels that moved most of Africa’s large illegal ivory shipments between 2011 and 2014.
- These three cartels operated from Entebbe in Uganda, Mombasa in Kenya, and Lomé in Togo.
- The researchers hope that links established in the study will help tie ivory-trafficking kingpins to multiple large ivory seizures, and strengthen the case against them.

87 elephants found dead in Botswana, one of last safe havens for the species
- At least 87 elephants were killed by poachers in recent months, conservation nonprofit Elephants Without Borders said based on an ongoing aerial survey in northern Botswana.
- Given that the current aerial survey is only halfway through, conservationists worry the final number of poached elephants will be much higher.
- The government of Botswana, however, has refuted the organization’s claims and called the figures “unsubstantiated,” in a statement published on Twitter.

The appeal acquittal of Feisal Mohamed Ali: A victory for rule of law, a process corrupted, or both? (commentary)
- With Kenya still stinging from the humiliation and embarrassment over the translocation-related deaths of 11 rhinos, a Kenyan court declared on August 3 that convicted ivory trafficker Feisal Mohamed Ali was to be set free.
- Lady Justice Dora Chepkwony ruled that he should be acquitted for a number of reasons, ranging from constitutional concerns to original trial irregularities.
- Following Feisal’s conviction, Feisal’s counsel said that the “trial court erred in law and fact [and] that it convicted [Feisal] on the basis of mere suspicion.” The counsel also stated that Feisal had been made a “sacrificial lamb so as to appease the public.” Considering the substantial national and international media attention that this trial had received as well as the political climate at the time, this possibility cannot be ignored.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Two suspected poachers arrested for killing of Sumatran elephant
- Indonesian authorities have arrested two of four suspects alleged to have killed a rare Sumatran elephant and hacked off one of its tusks.
- The arrest took place about a month after the elephant was found dead in the Leuser Ecosystem in Sumatra’s Aceh province. News of the killing garnered widespread attention and calls to solve the case.
- There are only an estimated 2,400 Sumatran elephants left in the wild, scattered across 25 fragmented habitats on the island.

Fingerprinting technology gives investigators an edge against pangolin traffickers
- Researchers in the U.K. have modified the gelatin lifters used in criminal forensic investigations so they can pick up clues from pangolin scales and other illegally traded wildlife body parts.
- Wildlife guards in Kenya and Cameroon are using packs of the gelatin lifters in the field to gather evidence.
- The researchers say this new technology allows wildlife conservation officials to collect this evidence more quickly in remote areas, which in turn helps to ensure their safety.

Poachers blamed in second Sumatran elephant death this year
- Forest rangers in northern Sumatra have found one of their patrol elephants dead and missing a tusk inside a protected forest.
- Authorities have cited poisoning by poachers as the cause of death, making it the second such poaching-related elephant killing in Sumatra this year.
- The local conservation agency has called on law enforcers to bring the perpetrators to justice, but past cases suggest this will be slow in coming.

New technology leads to the arrest of eight people suspected of trafficking wildlife parts
- Eight men, including three government officials, all from African countries, have been arrested for allegedly trafficking wildlife body parts to Southeast Asia.
- Officers from the Lusaka Agreement Task Force, based in Nairobi, Kenya, used data analytics software to track down the alleged smugglers, who were arrested in the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo in May.
- The investigation linked the accused to shipments of pangolin scales and elephant tusks seized in Southeast Asia.

Owner of South African hunting company indicted by US prosecutors over illegal elephant hunt
- The owner of a trophy hunting business in South Africa has been indicted by prosecutors with the United States Department of Justice for violating the Endangered Species Act and the Lacey Act.
- Prosecutors in the US state of Colorado have alleged that Hanno van Rensburg, a South African national and owner of Authentic African Adventures, led an illegal hunt in Zimbabwe’s Gonarezhou National Park in 2015 and bribed Zimbabwean government officials with somewhere between $5,000 and $8,000 to look the other way. Van Rensburg is also accused of conspiring with a member of the hunting party from Colorado to illegally export elephant ivory to the US by falsifying documents to claim that the hunter was a South African resident and did not shoot the elephant inside the national park.
- While prosecutors did not name the Colorado hunter with whom van Rensburg conspired to illegally export the elephant trophies, he has been identified as Paul Ross Jackson of Evergreen, Colorado. Jackson, a former vice president of the Dallas Safari Club, pleaded guilty in April to violating the U.S. Endangered Species Act in connection to the same hunt.

Documenting the African elephant’s ‘last stand’: Q&A with filmmakers Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson
- “Walking Thunder,” a film by Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson, tracks elephants across Africa.
- The couple’s son, Lysander, guides viewers through his discovery, first of the elephants and peoples of Africa, and then of the threats they face.
- Christo calls the film a “prayer” for the species.

Will China’s new ban on the ivory trade help or hurt? (Commentary)
- At the end of 2017, China announced that it had closed down the domestic legal trade in ivory, to global acclaim.
- The new ban represents all the makings of excellent global public relations, but conservationist Karl Amman asks whether it will do more harm than good for elephants without effective enforcement.
- The post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Black rhinos return to Zakouma National Park in Chad
- The NGO African Parks and its partners in South Africa and Chad reintroduced six black rhinos to Zakouma National Park on May 4.
- Chad’s oldest national park had not had rhinos since the early 1970s, when they were wiped out by hunting.
- After a brief acclimation period in transitional bomas, or enclosures, the rhinos will be released into a protected sanctuary in the park.
- Around 5,000 black rhinos remain on the African continent, and poaching for their horns, used in traditional Asian medicine, continues to be a threat to their survival as a species.

Conservationist known as a caretaker for Kenya’s orphaned elephants dies at 83
- Conservationist Daphne Sheldrick died of breast cancer on April 12, according to the conservation organization she founded.
- Born in Kenya, she spent her life working to care for orphaned elephants in Kenya and fighting to save the species through her advocacy.
- She started the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, named for her husband, in 1977.
- The organization runs an orphan elephant project, as well as de-snaring and veterinary care teams.

U.K. ban relegates legal ivory trade to ‘a thing of the past’
- The United Kingdom says it will ban, with a few exceptions, the sale of all ivory in the country.
- Conservation groups have welcomed the move and pointed out that poaching to fuel the global ivory trade leads to the deaths of 55 elephants a day, or around 20,000 per year.
- The closure of domestic markets in the U.K., along with similar moves in China, Hong Kong and the U.S., will close the loopholes that allow illegal traders to launder their illicitly acquired ivory, proponents of the measure say.

Five-year sentences for elephant poachers in Republic of Congo
- A court in the Republic of Congo has convicted three men of killing elephants for their tusks. They were handed five-year prison sentences and fined $10,000 each.
- The three men were part of a six-member poaching gang that managed to escape an ambush set up by park authorities, but not before leaving behind some 70 kilograms of ivory as well as an AK-47 rifle, according to the WCS.
- The gang is believed to have links to some of northern Congo’s most notorious elephant poachers and ivory traffickers, including two who were jailed in the last two years.

Scientists deploy DNA analysis and radiocarbon dating in latest salvo against ivory trafficking
- Scientists are analyzing ivory samples confiscated from the U.S. retail market to help reduce elephant poaching.
- Two teams of scientists will use radiocarbon dating to determine when each elephant was killed and DNA analyses to locate where it came from in Africa.
- Determining the location and year an elephant that produced a tusk was killed establishes if the ivory being sold is legal, helps assess the current extent of poaching, and assists law enforcement in targeting the poachers responsible.

Hong Kong votes to ban ivory trade by 2021
- Hong Kong, one of the world’s largest ivory markets, has overwhelmingly voted to ban its domestic ivory trade.
- This ban comes just a month after China shut down all of its ivory markets on the mainland.
- The ban will be implemented in a three-step plan over the next three years.

Poachers blamed as body of Sumatran elephant, missing tusks, found in protected forest
- Farmers in southern Sumatra found the body of a young male elephant inside a protected forest and missing its tusks.
- No external injuries were found that could point to a cause of death, leading wildlife activists to suspect it was killed by poisoning, a common tactic used by poachers.
- The discovery comes less than a month after a pregnant elephant was found poisoned to death in northern Sumatra — although in that case the tuskless female appeared more likely to have been killed for encroaching on farms than by poachers.

Ivory trade in China is now banned
- China has shut its legal, domestic ivory markets and banned all commercial ivory trade.
- Conservationists have welcomed this ban, calling it “one of the most important days in the history of elephant conservation”.
- But for China’s ivory ban to work, neighboring countries must follow suit, conservationists say.

Audio: Indonesian rainforests for sale and bat calls of the Amazon
- This episode of the Mongabay Newscast takes a look at the first installment of our new investigative series, “Indonesia for Sale,” and features the sounds of Amazonian bats.
- Mongabay’s Indonesia-based editor Phil Jacobson joins the Newscast to tell us all about “Indonesia for Sale” and the first piece in the series, “The palm oil fiefdom.”
- We also speak with Adrià López-Baucells, a PhD student in bat ecology who has conducted acoustic studies of bats in the central Amazon for the past several years. In this Field Notes segment, López-Baucells plays some of the recordings he used to study the effects of Amazon forest fragmentation on bat foraging behavior.

Ivory is out in the UK, as government moves to shutter legal trade
- The British government began a 12-week consultation period on Oct. 6 to sort out the details for a near-total ban on its domestic ivory trade.
- Conservation groups have long worried that even a legal trade can mask the illicit movement of ivory and stimulate further demand for ivory from poached elephants.
- The conservation groups WCS and Stop Ivory applauded the announcement and pledged to work with the government to put the ban in place.

Audio: Legendary musician Bruce Cockburn on music, activism, and hope
- Music has a unique ability to inspire awareness and action about important issues — and we’re excited to welcome a living legend onto the program to discuss that very topic.
- Bruce Cockburn, well known for his outspoken support of environmental and humanitarian causes, appears on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast.
- Our second guest is Amanda Lollar, founder and president of Bat World Sanctuary, a wildlife rehabilitation center in Texas.
- All that plus the top news!

Central Africa’s ivory trade shifts underground, according to new report
- A series of undercover investigations by the NGO TRAFFIC over several years in five Central African countries has revealed a shift in the region from local markets for ivory to an ‘underground’ international trade.
- The resulting report, published Sept. 7, finds that organized crime outfits, aided by high-level corruption, are moving ivory out of Central African to markets abroad, especially in China and other parts of Asia.
- A 2013 study found that elephant numbers in Central Africa’s forests dropped by 62 percent between 2002 and 2011.

Audio: A rare earth mine in Madagascar triggers concerns for locals and lemurs
- Our first guest on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast is Eddie Carver, a Mongabay contributor based in Madagascar who recently wrote a report about a troubled company that is hoping to mine rare earth elements in a forest on the Ampasindava peninsula, a highly biodiverse region that is home to numerous endangered lemur species.
- Carver speaks about the risks of mining for rare earth elements, how the mine might impact wildlife like endangered lemur species found nowhere else on Earth, the complicated history of the company and its ownership of the mine, and how villagers in nearby communities have already been impacted by exploratory mining efforts.
- Our second guest is Jo Wood, an Environmental Water Project Officer in Victoria, Australia, who plays for us the calls of a number of indicator species whose presence helps her assess the success of her wetland rewetting work.

Leading ivory trade investigator slain in Tanzania
- One of Africa’s top ivory trade investigators has been shot dead by gunmen in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
- Wayne Lotter was the co-founder and President of PAMS Foundation, which set up and supported the elite unit behind more than 2,000 arrests since November 2014.
- He was killed late on Wednesday, while traveling in a taxi from the airport to his rented flat in the quiet suburb of Masaki.

High volumes of ivory continue to be sold online in Japan
- A new report by TRAFFIC has found that thousands of jewelry, seals, scrolls and other items made of elephant ivory continue to be sold online in Japan every week.
- Over a four-week survey, ivory items worth over JPY 45.2 million ($407,000) were sold across various websites, the team found.
- The sheer scale of the trade warrants scrutiny to prevent illicit activities, the team says.

U.K. is the world’s biggest exporter of legal ivory, data analysis shows
- The United Kingdom legally exported more than 36,000 pieces of ivory between 2010 and 2015, 370 percent more than the United States, the next biggest exporter.
- Over the same time period, the U.K. has been the major supplier for markets in China and Hong Kong.
- EIA and other environmental groups fear that the trade of legal ivory encourages the continued poaching of elephants by perpetuating demand and masking the trade of illegally harvested ivory.

New research provides baseline for evaluating effectiveness of US ban on ivory trade
- The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) announced a “near-total ban” on the commercial trade of elephant ivory last year.
- Now, new research led by wildlife trade monitoring NGO TRAFFIC released last week provides a baseline for the state of the ivory market in the U.S. at the time the ban went into effect — which future monitoring efforts will rely on in order to determine the impacts of the legislative and regulatory changes made by the FWS a year ago.
- Researchers found that a total of 1,589 elephant ivory items, including figurines (780 items), jewelry (417), and household goods (261), were being sold by 227 different vendors in six major American cities from May to July 2016.
- They also also found that some 2,056 elephant ivory items were available on six major online auction sites and marketplaces between June and August 2016.

Watch: $8 million worth elephant ivory crushed in New York City
- The ivory, weighing nearly two tons, is believed to represent more than 100 slaughtered elephants.
- By destroying the illegally obtained ivory, authorities hope to send a message to poachers, traffickers and dealers that the slaughter of elephants will not be tolerated.
- All of the ivory that was crushed on Thursday came from seizures over the past three years, mostly from New York City.

Investigation finds ‘thriving’ rhino horn trade in Asia
- Over 11 months, EAL investigators posed as potential buyers and identified 55 ‘persons of interest’ involved in the trade of rhino horn.
- The group mapped out the routes by which rhino horn – valued at tens of thousands of dollars per kilogram – arrives in China.
- Recorded conversations during the investigation allude to the fact that dealers and traders understand that rhinos face the threat of extinction.

Audio: DJ remixes the sounds of birds, lemurs, and more to inspire conservation
- Our first guest is Ben Mirin, aka DJ Ecotone, an explorer, wildlife DJ, educator, and television presenter who creates music from the sounds of nature to help inspire conservation efforts.
- In this very special Field Notes segment, Mirin discusses his craft and some of the challenges of capturing wildlife sounds in the field — including why it can be so difficult to record dolphins when all they want to do is take a bow ride on your boat.
- We also speak with Cleve Hicks, author of a children’s book called A Rhino to the Rescue: A Tale of Conservation and Adventure, not only to express his love of nature but to help raise awareness of the poaching crisis decimating Africa’s rhino population.
- All that plus the top news on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast!

Hong Kong officials seize ‘largest ever’ ivory shipment worth $9 million
- The customs authorities discovered the tusks inside a 40-feet Malaysian consignment declared as “frozen fish”.
- Following an initial investigation, the authorities have arrested the owner and two staff members of a trading company in Tuen Mun, Hong Kong.
- In December last year, Hong Kong government announced a three-step plan to phase out domestic ivory trade by the end of 2021.

The Chinese town at the epicenter of the global illegal ivory trade
- According to a report released yesterday by the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), Shuidong is “the world’s largest hub for ivory trafficking,” home to a network of criminal syndicates that have come to dominate the trade in illegal ivory poached from elephants in East and West Africa.
- One illegal ivory trafficker told EIA’s undercover investigators that he estimated as much as 80 percent of all poached ivory smuggled out of Africa and into China goes through Shuidong.
- The illegal trade in ivory is contributing to precipitous declines in African elephant populations.

‘Crunch time for biodiversity’: Farming, hunting push thousands of species toward extinction
- Eighty percent of threatened animals are losing ground – literally, in the form of habitat loss – to agriculture.
- Up to 50 percent of threatened birds and mammals face extinction at the hands of hunters.
- In a study published in the journal Nature, a team of scientists explores solutions to avoid destroying the habitats of these animals, such as increasing yields in the developed world and minimizing fertilizer use.

Conservation group African Parks to look after West African wildlife
- The 10-year agreement includes funding of $26 million.
- African Parks and the government of Benin aim to double wildlife populations in the park by training guards and shoring up protections from poaching.
- The effort will create some 400 jobs and benefit the overall economy, say representatives of the government and the NGO.

Hong Kong Ivory traders encouraging buyers to smuggle ivory: TRAFFIC
- Exporting ivory bought in Hong Kong to mainland China would involve crossing an international border, which is illegal and in violation of CITES regulations.
- But 27 of the 74 traders that TRAFFIC surveyed encouraged buyers to take ivory out of Hong Kong without obtaining CITES permits.
- While some shopkeepers suggested hiding small ivory trinkets in bags and luggage, others offered more detailed strategies to conceal purchased ivory.

Cross River superhighway changes course in Nigeria
- The 260-kilometer (162-mile) highway is slated to have six lanes and would have run through the center of Cross River National Park as originally designed.
- The region is a biodiversity hotspot and home to forest elephants, drills, Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees and Cross River gorillas.
- The proposal shifts the route to the west, out of the center of the national park, which garnered praise from the Wildlife Conservation Society.
- The route still appears to cut through forested areas and protected lands.

Notorious elephant poacher, ‘The Devil’, sentenced to 12 years in jail
- Mariango was arrested in October 2015 with his brothers Lucas Mathayo Malyango and Abdallah Ally Chaoga while attempting to smuggle 118 tusks worth over $863,000.
- Aged 47, Mariango was one of the poachers featured in the Netflix documentary film, The Ivory Game, produced by Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio.
- He also stands accused of supplying ivory to Yang Feng Glan, a Chinese national nicknamed “Queen of Ivory,” who is on trial in Tanzania for smuggling ivory worth $2.5 million.

More than 25,000 elephants were killed in a Gabon national park in one decade
- A decline of somewhere between 78 and 81 percent in the park’s forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) population over the span of just one decade was largely driven by poachers who crossed the border into Gabon from its neighbor to the north, Cameroon, according to a new study led by researchers with Duke University and published in the journal Current Biology this week.
- The fact that Cameroon’s national road is so close to the park makes it relatively easy for poachers to slip into the park, make their illegal kills, and then transport elephant tusks back to Cameroon’s largest city, Douala, which has become a major hub of the international ivory trade.
- Nearly half of Central Africa’s estimated 100,000 forest elephants are thought to live in Gabon, making the loss of 25,000 elephants from a key sanctuary a considerable setback for the preservation of the species, according to John Poulsen, assistant professor of tropical ecology at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment and the lead author of the study.

Seven ‘most wanted’ elephant poachers arrested in Malaysia
- The poachers were caught in a joint operation between the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) and Malaysia’s Armed Forces on February 10.
- During the raid, the authorities seized animal parts worth about $112,300, as well as hunting gear and firearms, including shotguns, machetes, knives, bullets, explosives and firecrackers.
- During subsequent raids on February 11 and 12, Perhilitan officers seized two elephant tusks, elephant meat, and more weapons and equipment.

Bridge through Borneo wildlife sanctuary moving forward
- For more than a year, scientists and conservationists have argued that the 350-meter (1,148-foot) Sukau bridge crossing the Kinabatangan River in the Malaysian state of Sabah would hurt wildlife populations and a blossoming ecotourism market more than it would boost local economies.
- The paved road that would accompany the bridge would cut through the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary, home to Borneo elephants and 11 species of primates including orangutans.
- A government official responded to recent reports about the bridge’s construction, saying that it would not begin until the environmental impact assessment has been completed.

Newscast #9: Joel Berger on overlooked ‘edge species’ that deserve conservation
- We’re also joined by Andrew Whitworth, a conservation and biodiversity scientist with the University of Glasgow, who shares with us some of the recordings he’s made in the field of a critically endangered bird called the Sira Curassow.
- Plus: China to close its domestic ivory markets, Cheetah population numbers crash, and more in the top news.
- Happy New Year to all of our faithful listeners!

Elephants in Borneo slaughtered for ivory (WARNING: graphic photos)
- The carcass of the first elephant was discovered on December 27, and that of the second elephant — a sabre-tusked bull named Sabre — was found on New Year’s Eve.
- Both elephants had their tusks removed.
- According to Sabre’s satellite collar, the elephant was likely killed on 21 November 2016.

Hong Kong to ban ivory trade by 2021
- The government’s three-step plan aims to completely phase out domestic ivory trade by the end of 2021.
- The final phase will come into force from December 31, 2021, when all licenses will expire.
- The government has ruled out compensating the traders, and said that five years was a sufficiently long grace time.

Elusive elephants: Determining where 19th century ivory trade victims roamed
- African elephant poaching escalated in the 19th century and still continues today.
- New research has helped to map out the origins of East African poached elephants from the 19th century.
- The research techniques can contribute to conserving modern-day elephants at risk of poaching and/or habitat loss.

Most illegal ivory comes from recently killed elephants: new study
- The multi-billion-dollar illegal ivory trade is almost entirely being fueled by African elephants killed within the last three years, a new study has found.
- This indicates that it is new ivory that is moving rapidly into the illegal market, and not old ivory from stockpiles that was previously thought to be leaking into the market, researchers say.
- The results of the study can help law enforcement focus their efforts on the regions worst hit by poaching and can also provide information on the killing rate of elephants, researchers add.

Elephant poaching costs African nations $25 million a year in lost tourism revenue
- The elephant poaching crisis does not harm elephants alone, it is bad for the economy too, according to a new study.
- The loss of elephants to wildlife trafficking is costing African countries about $25 million a year in lost tourism revenue, the study found.
- The tourism revenue lost due to declining elephants exceeds the anti-poaching costs necessary to stop the decline of elephants in east, west and southern Africa, the researchers found.

Poaching in Africa becomes increasingly militarized
- Due to skyrocketing consumer demand, particularly from Asia, today’s wildlife traffickers have the resources to outfit their henchmen with weaponry and equipment that often outmatches that of the local park rangers.
- The poachers doing the most damage in Africa today are employed by professional trafficking syndicates, and they enjoy a level of support and financial backing unimaginable during earlier poaching crises.
- The poachers’ arsenal includes the expanding use of military-grade equipment like helicopters, machine guns, infrared scopes, and heavy armored vehicles.

Countries at IUCN Congress vote to ban domestic ivory markets
- At the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress in Hawaii last week, delegates passed a motion to ban all domestic ivory markets.
- The ban is not legally binding, but urges governments with legal domestic markets for elephant ivory to close them down.
- Countries like Namibia, Japan and South Africa opposed the motion arguing that domestic markets should be regulated but kept open.

Malaysia is a major transit point for ivory smugglers
- Between January 2003 and May 2014, about 66 ivory seizures, totaling 63,419 kilograms (~140,000 pounds) of ivory, were made either within Malaysia or outside the country, but with Malaysia identified as part of the trade chain.
- Most of the ivory — about 96 percent — came from just 26 large-scale seizures, each with more than 500 kilograms of ivory, suggesting that organized crime groups with “high levels of financial, organizational and networking resources,” are involved.
- Most ivory seizures originated from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, the team found, which are the three most important exit points in Africa for illegal trade in elephant ivory.

Detector Dogs sniff out illegal ivory, help nab poacher in Tanzania
- Two dogs — Jenny, a Belgian Malinois dog, and Dexter, an English springer spaniel — are members of a new team of specially trained dogs and handlers from Tanzanian National Parks (TANAPA), according to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).
- Following a tipoff, Jenny and her handler successfully detected four concealed elephant tusks hidden in plastic under a parked vehicle.
- The tusks are small, TANAPA officials report, and have presumably come from “young elephants that had not even reached middle age”.

World Elephant Day: Poaching remains ‘unacceptably high’ for African elephants
- The two CITES monitoring programs — the Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS) and Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) — will present their reports at the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP) to the CITES in September.
- According to the ETIS report, levels of illegal ivory trade reached their highest levels in 2012 and 2013. In 2014, the only subsequent year with sufficient seizure data for analysis, illegal trade in ivory was lower.
- The MIKE report indicates that levels of illegal elephant killings peaked in 2011, and appear to have slowed or stabilized since then. But levels of poaching still remain far too high to allow elephant populations to recover, the statement said.

Two businessmen arrested for ivory trafficking
- The two detainees own shipping companies based in the Republic of the Congo.
- The shipping companies are allegedly involved in covertly moving large consignments of elephant tusks out of West Africa to Asia.
- Investigations into the dealings of the two businessmen began in 2014 after 1,493 kilograms of ivory were seized by Vietnamese officers, followed by several other ivory seizures by Thai, Vietnamese, and Singaporean authorities in 2015.

Ivory poaching kingpin gets 20 years in jail
- Feisal Ali Mohamed was found guilty of dealing in ivory worth $433,000, which involved the killing of at least 120 elephants.
- Principal magistrate Diane Mochache found Mohamed guilty and sentenced him to to 20 years in jail and fined him $200,000.
- “This is the first time that Kenya has prosecuted a large ivory seizure to conclusion,” conservation group says.

Vietnam is one of world’s biggest illegal ivory markets
- The sale of ivory products has increased by over six times from 2008 to 2015, according to a new report by Save the Elephants.
- The number of ivory carvers have increased at least 10-fold, the researchers estimate, while the number of shops selling ivory have risen by nearly three times.
- The primary change, the report found, was the expansion of the ivory trade in villages south of Hanoi, which have lower labor and machine production costs, making ivory items cheaper in Vietnam and more attractive to the Chinese.

Top 10 stories you should be aware of this World Oceans Day, according to Carl Safina
- Safina’s latest book, Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel, came out in 2015, and is due for a paperback release on July 12 via Picador.
- “It’s about the thought and emotional range of non-human animals, but including humans,” Safina told Mongabay.
- Safina’s list of stand-out stories includes several oceans and marine life stories, a couple that just show how similar to humans animals can really be, and a few that will interest anyone concerned with the plight of the natural world.

Two Chinese ivory smugglers sentenced to 35 years each in jail
- A court in Tanzania has sentenced two Chinese men to 30 years each in jail for smuggling ivory, and an additional five years of jail for attempting to bribe police and wildlife officers, according to local media reports.
- This is believed to be one of the heaviest sentences handed out to poachers in the region.
- The men reportedly entered Tanzania posing as garlic importers and marine product exporters in 2010, and were arrested in Dar es Salaam in 2013.

‘Exploitation crisis’: Civil war fueling ‘sharp rise’ in poaching and trafficking of South Sudan’s wildlife
- Before the war broke out, South Sudan’s forests and savannah were home to about 2,500 elephants, several hundred giraffe, the endemic Nile Lechwe and white-eared kob, tiang, Mongalla antelope migration, wild dog, chimpanzee, and bongo populations, WCS’s scientists say.
- But ever since the outbreak of the war, there has been an “alarming” expansion of illegal activities across the country.
- Both local and international actors, especially the armed forces, have become involved in ivory poaching and trafficking, commercial bushmeat poaching and trafficking, illegal logging, gold mining, and charcoal production, WCS added.

Elephant poachers kill British helicopter pilot, 5 suspects arrested
- On January 29, elephant poachers shot and killed Roger Gower, a British helicopter pilot in Tanzania.
- Gower managed to land the helicopter, but died before rescuers could reach him, according to media reports.
- Government officials have arrested five suspects, media reports say.

Sri Lanka crushes and destroys over 350 ivory tusks
- Today, Sri Lanka crushed and destroyed its biggest-ever haul of 359 ivory tusks, the country’s entire stockpile, at the Galle Face Green in Colombo.
- This is the first time a South Asian country is destroying its illegal ivory stockpile, an act that is meant to demonstrate the country’s intolerance for wildlife crime.
- Today’s ivory crush began with a religious ceremony performed by Buddhist monks, and Hindu, Muslim and Christian representatives, who prayed for the elephants that have lost their lives.

Tracking imperiled elephants with cutting-edge technology: an interview with Iain Douglas-Hamilton
- Researchers and wildlife managers are testing new techniques to monitor elephants’ movements and maintain their habitat
- Reserve managers benefit from combining data from ranger and animal tracking tags, surveillance, and environmental data
- Unmanned aircraft systems could assist with censusing and keeping track of cattle, to help reduce overgrazing of fragile arid ecosystems

Most wanted elephant poacher and ivory trafficker in Tanzania arrested
- Tanzania has been widely criticized by conservationists and environmentalists for failing to reign in the illicit ivory trade, but recent high-profile arrests have raised hopes for the future of the African elephant.
- Mariango had evaded arrest numerous times in the past and was finally apprehended by Tanzania’s National and Transnational Serious Crimes Investigation Unit (NTSCIU) on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam.
- “The Devil” was captured just weeks after a Chinese national, Yang Feng Glan, known as the “Queen of Ivory,” was arrested and charged with smuggling 706 elephant tusks with a street value of $2.5 million.

Uncovered: How Hong Kong’s ‘legal’ ivory markets fuel elephant poaching
- Hong Kong’s system of keeping track of “legal” ivory is full of loopholes, report has found.
- Pre-1989 ivory stocks in Hong Kong should have run out by 2004, report estimates, but over 111 tonnes of ivory remain in markets as of 2014.
- “The profits are too high and the system is too easy to game,” conservationist says.

Seized: $4 million worth of ivory, rhino horn and bear paws
- Beijing Forest Police have confiscated around 1,773 pounds of ivory, 24 pounds of rhino horn and 35 bear paws, worth about $4 million.
- The police have also arrested 16 suspected members of the involved wildlife smuggling ring.
- Ivory was being smuggled from Japan to mainland China via HongKong, the police have uncovered.

China and U.S. commit to end ivory trade
- In a joint statement, China and the United States announced their commitment to end domestic commercial ivory sales.
- The two countries will cooperate in “joint training, technical exchanges, information sharing, and public education on combating wildlife trafficking, and enhance international law enforcement cooperation in this field,” according to the statement.
- This announcement marks Chinese President Xi Jinping’s first public commitment to end ivory sales in China.

California takes step toward banning elephant ivory, rhino horn trades
- Today the California Senate approved legislation that would ban the ivory and rhinoceros horn across the state.
- AB 96 passed 26-13, reflecting widespread support for the measure.
- But some critics say the bill’s exemption for “antique ivory” will make the legislation difficult to enforce.

Scientists unite on World Elephant Day calling for ban on ivory trade in the U.S.

On August 11, the eve of World Elephant Day, a group of 250 scientists from varied backgrounds, disciplines and organizations around the world sent a letter to Barack Obama urging for the closure of commercial ivory trade in the United States. The letter, according to Wildlife Conservation Society, was conceived and circulated by the Association […]
U.S. to strengthen restrictions elephant ivory
- Today President Obama announced new rules to curb the elephant ivory trade.
- The regulation would ban the sale of ‘virtually all ivory across state lines.’
- An estimated 100,000 African elephants were killed between 2010-2012, according to scientists.

What do China, Kenya and India have in common? Wildlife trafficking

A white rhino in Kruger National Park in South Africa. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. When it comes to trafficking rhino, elephant, and tiger parts the biggest players are China, Kenya, India, Vietnam, South Africa and Thailand, according to a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Examining news media […]
The ivory trade and the war on wildlife (rangers) [commentary]

In this commentary, Fred Bercovitch, wildlife conservation biologist at Kyoto University, confronts the conservation community with an unconventional approach to stopping the ivory trade and illegal elephant killing. The views expressed are his own. Orphaned elephants in Kenya. “Nothing creates a greater surprise among the negroes [sic] on the sea-coast than the eagerness displayed by […]
Mozambique loses almost 10,000 elephants in just five years

Poached elephant in Niassa National Reserve. Photo by: Alastair Nelson/ WCS. Mozambique has lost nearly half of its elephants to relentless, brutal, and highly-organized poaching in just five years, according to a new government survey. In 2010, the country was home to an estimated 20,000 pachyderms, today it houses just 10,300. “These survey results are […]
South African Airways bans all wildlife trophies from flights

Wildlife trophy room. Photo by: Fabio Venni/Creative Commons 2.0. Trophy hunters may need to find another flight home, as South African Airlines (SAA) has announced a new ban on any wildlife trophies from their flights. “Hunting of endangered species has become a major problem in Africa and elsewhere with the depletion to near extinction of […]
Illegal ivory trade alive and well on Craigslist

Seized ivory that was crushed. Photo by: IFAW. As it has become more difficult to buy illegal ivory from slaughtered elephants on places like eBay, Etsy, and Amazon.com, traders and buyers in the U.S. have turned to another venue: Craigslist. A new report by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and the Wildlife Conservation […]
China bans carved ivory imports

Elephant in South Africa.. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. China has established a one-year ban on imports of carved African elephant ivory. Conservationists say the move, effective immediately, sends an important signal, but alone won’t be enough to slow elephant poaching. “This announcement is an encouraging signal that the Chinese government is ratcheting down the […]
Corruption in Tanzania facilitates ivory trade

Elephants in Tanzania. All photos by Rhett A. Butler Corruption in Tanzania is enabling large volumes of illegal elephant ivory to be smuggled out of the country, alleges a new report from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) The report, titled Vanishing Point, says that high ranking officials are involved in the illicit trade, which have […]
Elephants worth much, much more alive than dead, says new report

A living African elephant has 76 times the value of one poached for ivory, according to report Elephants are worth 76 times more when they’re alive than dead, according to a new analysis released this past weekend. The report follows on the heels of findings by WWF that the world has lost 50 percent of […]
WCS-led raids lead to six arrests near Mozambique’s largest reserve

WARNING: Graphic photos below. 35,000 elephants killed in Africa in 2012 for black market ivory trade A joint force of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and government authorities are in the midst of carrying out a series of raids against poachers in Mozambique aimed at halting the illegal killing of elephants in Niassa National Reserve, […]
20 percent of Africa’s elephants killed in three years

Around 100,000 elephants were killed by poachers for their ivory on the African continent in just three years, according to a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Between 2010 and 2012 an average of 6.8 percent of the elephant population was killed annually, equaling just over 20 percent of the […]
Want to save Africa’s elephants? Close all ivory markets

The only way to save the long-suffering elephants of Africa is to close every ivory market on the planet and destroy all ivory stockpiles, according to a bold new essay in Conservation Biology. Written by Elizabeth Bennett, the Vice President for Species Conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the paper is likely to prove […]
Price of ivory triples in China

Ironic ivory? Ivory trinkets carved into elephants, potentially from butchered wild elephants. Picture taken in the Jatujak weekend market, Thailand in 2014. Photo by: Naomi Doak/TRAFFIC. In the last four years the price of ivory in China has tripled, according to new research from Save the Elephants. The news has worrying implications for governments and […]
Too tempting, too easy: poachers kill Kenya’s biggest elephant

Report estimates more than 20,000 elephants poached in Africa in 2013 In the first week of June, a huge elephant carcass was found in a swamp in Tsavo East National Park. Its face was mutilated and its tusks were gone, but many who worked in the park thought they knew exactly which elephant it was. […]
Chelsea, Hillary Clinton urge action to save elephants

Hillary and Chelsea Clinton on stage at the WCS event at the Central Park Zoo June 12, 2014. Photo © Julie Larsen Maher / WCS. Former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton and her daughter Chelsea are urging for further action to protect elephants from the devastating ivory trade. Speaking last night at a fundraiser […]
New York State Assembly approves bill banning ivory trade

Baby elephant in South Africa. The New York State Assembly has passed a bill that would ban the purchase and sale of elephant ivory and rhino horn, reports the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which played a key role in pushing the legislation. The bill, which passed nearly unanimously, would bar nearly all ivory sales. For […]
Featured video: elephant advocates ask Antiques Roadshow to stop appraising ivory

The 96 Elephants campaign has asked the television program, Antiques Roadshow, to stop airing appraisals of ivory, even if it is antique. To help convince the PBS program, the campaign—run by the Wildlife Conservation Society along with dozens of partners—produced a satiric video capturing not the worth of ivory, but its cost (see below). “Allowing […]
Ivory trade’s shocking toll: 65% of world’s forest elephants killed in 12 years (warning: graphic image)

Forest elephants have suffered unprecedented butchery for their ivory tusks over the past decade, according to new numbers released by conservationists today in London. Sixty-five percent of the world’s forest elephants have been slaughtered by poachers over the last dozen years, with poachers killing an astounding nine percent of the population annually. Lesser-known than their […]
Obama announces new strategy to tackle wildlife trafficking, including toughening ivory ban

Yesterday, the Obama administration announced an ambitious new strategy to help tackle the global illegal wildlife trade, including a near-complete ban on commercial ivory. The new strategy will not only push over a dozen federal agencies to make fighting wildlife trafficking a new priority, but will also focus on reducing demand for wildlife parts and […]
22,000 elephants slaughtered for their ivory in 2012

As the African Elephant Summit open in Botswana today, conservationists released a new estimate of the number of African elephants lost to the guns of poachers last year: 22,000. Some 15,000 elephants killed in 42 sites across 27 countries on the continent, according to newly released data from the CITES program, Monitoring the Illegal Killing […]
New campaign: hey China, stop killing the ‘pandas of Africa’

A new public-service campaign in China will ask potential ivory and rhino horn buyers to see the victims of these illicit trades in a new light: as the “pandas of Africa.” The posters are a part of WildAid’s “Say No to Ivory and Rhino Horn” campaign, which was launched earlier in the year. “These new […]
Advertising campaign changing minds in China on ivory trade

70 percent of Chinese did not know that ivory came from dead elephants. For three years, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) has been running advertizing campaigns in Chinese cities to raise awareness on the true source of ivory: slaughtered elephants. A recent evaluation of the campaign by Rapid Asia found that 66 percent […]
Tanzania should implement shoot-to-kill policy for poachers, says government minister

A government minister in Tanzania has called for a “shoot-to-kill” policy against poachers in a radical measure to curb the mass slaughter of elephants. Khamis Kagasheki’s proposal for perpetrators of the illicit ivory trade to be executed “on the spot” divided opinion, with some conservationists backing it as a necessary deterrent but others warning that […]
Butchering nature’s titans: without the elephant ‘we lose an essential pillar in the ability to wonder’

The world’s largest land animal looms small in the distance. Photo by: Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson. Africa’s elephant poaching crisis doesn’t just threaten a species, but imperils one of humanity’s most important links to the natural world and even our collective sanity, according to acclaimed photographers and film-makers, Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson. Authors […]
U.S. to crush its six ton ivory stockpile

On October 8th, the Obama administration will publicly destroy its ivory stockpile, totaling some six tons, according to a White House forum yesterday on the illegal wildlife trade. The destruction of the stockpile—via crushing—is meant to send a message that the U.S. is taking a tougher stand on illegal the wildlife trade, which is decimating […]
Authorities nab ringleader of poachers who killed 89 elephants in Chad

During a single night in March, horse-riding poachers slaughtered 89 elephants in Chad, including over 30 pregnant mothers. Now officials say they have caught the ringleader behind the mass-killing: Hassan Idriss, also known as Gargaf. Idriss was presented to journalists along with 124 tusks earlier this month. Officials say that Idriss ran a crew of […]
African militias trading elephant ivory for weapons

The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is using lucrative elephant poaching for ivory to fund its activities, according to a report published on Tuesday. Eyewitness accounts from park rangers, Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) escapees and recent senior defectors report that the fugitive warlord Joseph Kony, who is wanted by the international criminal court for war crimes […]
Kenya getting tough on poachers, set to increase fines and jail time

The Kenyan parliament has approved emergency measures to tackle the on-going poaching crisis: last week Kenyan MPs approved legislation that should lead to higher penalties for paochers. The emergency measure passed just as Kenya Wildlife Service’s (KWS) is pursuing a gang of poachers that slaughtered four rhinos over the weekend. Both rhinos and elephants have […]

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