When it comes to efforts to protect Africa’s elephants from poachers, timing, it seems, is everything.
That’s what an international team of researchers have discovered and are warning how the “mismatch” between China and Hong Kong’s recent ivory bans could ultimately undermine the conservation of the continent’s herd.
Their study, “Hong Kong’s delayed ivory ban endangers Africa’s elephants”, examines trends in government seizures of illegal ivory shipments in China and Hong Kong, to understand how the closure of one market could affect the other.
China implemented a nationwide ban on the sale and processing of ivory at the end of last year, and in January this year, Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, passed an amendment bill to ban all ivory trade by the end of 2021.
But traders could exploit this delay in an already poorly regulated market, warn University of Hong Kong (UHK) researchers and WildAid Hong Kong in their study published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.
“Because China prohibited the ivory trade at the end of 2017, there are concerns the trade will now shift to Hong Kong and records show it is already happening. Seizures of ivory in China and Hong Kong over the past two decades are negatively correlated suggesting that shipments - following the same trade route - are sometimes seized in Hong Kong, and other times intercepted only after crossing into mainland China.
“Alternatively, increased enforcement on one side of the border might push the trade to the other, a definite possibility given the existence of criminal syndicates moving ivory shipments between Hong Kong and China,” says the study.
“The closure of China’s market might push the trade to Hong Kong,” said Luke Gibson, the study’s lead author affiliated with the Southern University of Science and Technology in China and the UHK.
Thai customs officials display seized ivory in Bangkok in January. Thai authorities seized 148kg of full elephant tusks and 31 tusk fragments originating from Nigeria destined for China worth at least 15 million baht (about R7.1m). Picture: AP
This shift might already be happening. Last year, Hong Kong intercepted the world’s largest illegal shipment of elephant ivory since 1989 - when international trade of ivory was prohibited - more than seven metric tons.
Science, say the researchers, clearly indicates the future of elephants in Africa will depend largely on far-sighted action in Hong Kong. It is the epicentre of the global wildlife trade and plays a major role in the import of ivory from Africa.
“Of the legal trade monitored by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora since 1975, 71% of African elephant ivory has passed through Hong Kong. Since 1996, Hong Kong authorities have intercepted at least 37 metric tons of smuggled ivory.
“As long as ivory trade persists in Hong Kong, it enables the poaching of elephants across Africa by providing a legal market into which poached ivory can be laundered,” said co-author Astrid Andersson, of the UHK.
“The future of African elephants might depend on Hong Kong’s determination to end this trade immediately.”
From 2010 to 2012, more than 100000 elephants were killed by poachers “coincident with continent-wide population declines recorded during the past decade”.
In Hong Kong, ivory traders must obtain a “licence to possess” for commercial purposes, valid for five years.
“As of February 2017, there were around 380 active licences in Hong Kong. In December 2016, when the Hong Kong government announced a plan to phase out trade in elephant ivory, all licences issued for elephant ivory afterwards would expire on or before December 30, 2021, giving traders a five-year grace period to sell the remainder of their ivory. This deferral might be a blessing for traders, but could be a curse for the species already threatened with extinction,” said the authors.