NAIROBI - More African ivory is being
smuggled into China from Myanmar and Beijing's ban on trade in
ivory has failed to dampen imports, a report by conservation
group Save the Elephants said on Tuesday.
Wildlife activists said they welcomed China's ban this year
on the ivory trade, arguing the step by a country that is the
world's largest importer and end user of tusks was vital to
reducing the slaughter of the endangered species.
But it has not stopped what Save the Elephants called the
"prolific growth" in trading in a town in the "Golden Triangle"
area, where Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet at the confluence of
the Ruak and Mekong Rivers, south of China.
There has been a 60% growth in new ivory items seen
for sale in the Myanmar-China border town of Mong La in the past
three years and 90% of buyers are Chinese wishing to
smuggle the ivory home, the report said.
It gave no separate figures for the period since the ban was
introduced.
Myanmar has the world's largest population of captive
elephants, 5,000 in all, but trade in tusks at Mong La and
elsewhere increasingly comes from elephants of African origin,
the report said.
Myanmar's government spokesman Zaw Htay was not immediately
available for comment.
"Demand is still very high in China ... Myanmar has over
2,000 kilometres of borderline with China which is very easy for
smugglers to bring ivory across," said researcher Lucy Vigne.
She co-authored the report with Esmond Bradley-Martin, a
prominent American investigator of the illegal ivory and rhino
horn trade who was found dead in his home in the Kenyan capital
with an unexplained stab wound in his neck in February.
He had spent decades tracking the movement of animal
products, mostly from Africa to markets in Asia.
- Additional reporting by Poppy McPherson