The Forbidden Treasure

Imagine you are in a Chinese ornament shop. As you look around and see various jade ornaments and rare gemstones displayed around the store. Their dazzling sparkle graces your eyes. But then something in particular catches your eye.

A shining white dragon statue sits on the top shelf, but despite its beauty, you can’t help but wonder how it was made, and where it came from. When one takes a closer look into the origins of ornaments such as this one, a sinister truth is uncovered: that in order to create this beautiful statue, a magnificent animal was killed. The statue is nothing but a carving of an elephant’s ivory tusk.

Although the bulk of global demand for ivory comes from Chinese markets, China is not the source of it. In reality, the supplier of this ‘forbidden treasure’ lies far…far away from China on the other side of the Indian ocean, in East Africa. According to a statistic announced by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), around 70 elephants are poached every day for their tusks, in order to satisfy the growing demand for ivory. Even though the sale of ivory was banned in 1989 by CITES, the ivory trade is still very much alive, albeit now illegal.

Today the sale of ivory is banned globally.

According to a documentary by National Geographic, after an elephant is killed, poachers transport the tusks via canoe or motorbike to villages, where they are then loaded onto trucks and sent to the capital city. Eventually like most exports from east African nations, they are sent to the port of Mombasa in Kenya where, they are hidden among other goods such as agricultural goods. From Mombasa they are then sent all over the world with almost 70% of the ivory going to China. For example, in Hong Kong, 60000 cargo containers arrive daily. Unfortunately, less than 1% of the containers are inspected by the authorities, making Hong Kong a profitable and lucrative place for ivory smugglers. Ivory traders who get caught by the authorities in Hong Kong are rarely put under arrest and face minimal consequences and get away with light punishments.

The younger, tusk-less individuals of the herd are safe from poachers but often entire herds die after the matriarch of the herd is killed.

However there’s another side to the story. In recent years, the amount of ivory poaching has been decreasing year by year. Attitudes towards ivory products are more negative and country wide bans on ivory imports are being implemented, reducing the avenues for their sale. In 2017 the Chinese Government banned ivory trade within China, curbing the demand for ivory. However, the demand for ivory is still present, especially among the rising Chinese middle class, with some of the rich Chinese believing that ivory is a symbol of fortune and success. However these people make up a small minority among the Chinese population. A survey conducted by the WWF on Chinese consumers revealed that nearly 80 percent of the respondents support the ban and on top of this, the average black-market price of ivory in China has also dropped, indicating a reduction in supply of ivory that Chinese sellers have access to.

There is still much work to be done. It is important to note that poachers are the lowest in a large organized hierarchy. They generally come from poor regions and poach to support themselves financially. Therefore, combatting the ivory trade requires organizations and governments to target the people in charge of the entire smuggling scheme. Only then can we make progress in its fight against the ivory trade and one day hope to never see The Forbidden Treasure sitting on the shelves of ornament shops ever again.

By Rishabh Bandopadhaya