By Kshitish Kumar Golpeda
National law university, Odisha
"The poaching of tons of thousands of elephants every year this activity causes the death of about 20,000 African elephants. Elephants are murdered every day across Africa as a result of insatiable human hunger for these 'teeth’, which are used to make ivory ornaments and trinkets.."
If you went to the national museum in Delhi you show that elephant tusk that depicting scenes from Buddha’s life. in New York city you also get to see some of the tusk work them worth hundred thousand of dollars and antique pieces sold over way more than that in fact the average. Trade market is valued at 23 billions dollar annually and the going rate for for one pound ivory is about fifteen hundred dollar. But this same treaty also one of the worst source of animal cruelty in the entire world. The poaching of tons of thousands of elephants every year this activity causes the death of about 20,000 African elephants. Elephants are murdered every day across Africa as a result of insatiable human hunger for these 'teeth’, which are used to make ivory ornaments and trinkets, and many have completely vanished from some regions of continent.
BUT FIRST WHAT IS IVORY ANYWAY? WHAT MAKES IT SPECIAL?
Well to put it simply its a white material from Tuscan teeth made of dential that grows on lots of animals. Among which are rhino ,walrus, narwal, hippopotamus, elephants. Technically any mammalian teeth or toss can be consider as ivory because, they are all made of the same structure but the ivory mainly referring to elephants. Elephants toss are really massive averring about 2 meters in longs 10 centimeters in diameter and they weight about 20 kilos each. So you should not be surprised to learn that African elephants account for majority of the average trade market worldwide especially considering the fact that their tasks are large and soft enough to be easily turned into beautiful sculptures.
WHY IS IVORY SO EXPENSIVE?
Well for starter the trade of elephant ivory is illegal in many major countries and regions. including the us, uk, china, Singapore, honkong and few others ones this make ivory so rare dust more expensive in those regions because, even though its illegal there’s still a very high demand for it especially in china. So there a whole network of paths that traffickers take from the surrounding countries to seek into the country without getting caught, but the main reason why ivory is so expensive is that there’s a limited supply of elephants according to the worldwide fund for nature a non profitable organization that has the goal to reduce the human impact on nature there were only 415000 elephants left across the entirely of Africa that may sound like a lot but its actually freighting. Considering the fact that a century ago in the 1930s there were more than 10 million of them in the wild the main reason for this massive reduction is of course the loss of habitat but mostly the poaching. you might be asking yourself do poaching need to kill elephant to get the tusk and ivory well not necessarily. they could sedate them and cut the outside part of the tusks but in doing so they would lose a lot in efficiency and the amount of ivory they would get at the end would be much smaller because about 1/3 of an elephants tusk so they usually shoot the animal down and the proceed to carve out the entire ivory piece out of the skull leaving horribly damaged elephant heads behind them. but this way of doing things is clearly not sustainable as elephants take a very long time to reproduce first pregency last 22 month which is the longest gestation period for any mammal they only reach maturity after 12 years and for some them it’s a bit more than that and female can only conceive for a short period of time also they only carry one calf at a time. So the traffic industry clearly endangering wearing the most in testing animal on the planet obviously governments have now started to realize how big the problem is. As populations of elephants dwindle, criminals get wealthy at the killing. The ivory exchange is fueling prepared crime and lack of confidence as traffickers smuggle tusks via the equal networks as different excessive cost unlawful goods. Ultimately the exchange is pushed via way of means of call for ivory in client countries, by and large with inside the far east, in which its far admired as a standing image and an investment. The shooting and trafficking of elephant tusks to international markets is orchestrated by clever organized criminals the same gangs that transport people, firearms and drugs. The illegal earnings from this ivory trafficking imperil not only the survival of elephants but also global security in Africa.
Since the enterprise is illegal, the majority of the people who run it are affiliated with terrorist groups or criminals groups. Al-Shana, the affiliate of al Qaeda based in Somalia, receives $600,000 every month from poaching to support its operations. Poaching is another method used by the lords resistance army of Uganda, a rebel organization infamous for using children as slaves. Peter Seligman, CEO of conservation international, claims that poaching has e evolved into one of the most lucrative criminal enterprises
At the council of international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and floras ongoing session,india has decided not to vote against a proposal to reopen the international trade in ivory. The tussle over ivory what is it?1989 saw the inclusion of all African elephant populations in cites appendix1,which resulted in a global ban on the commerce in ivory. South Africa African elephant was added to appendix 2 in 2000,while Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe’s elephant was moved there in 19967.along with Zimbabwe, Botswana ,south Africa, and Namibia, cites permitted one time sales of ivory gathered from elephant deaths from natural causes and poacher secures in 1999 and 2008.then Namibia’s plan to allow a normal type of limited ivory trading by delisting
As I mention in the begging of blog many countries have already made ivory trade illegal but this activity still has a lot of popularity especially in India. where ivory can be seen as a very good investments it usually keeps its value very well overtime and obviously having lots of it can be a very good way to show off your money one good sign is that people are definitely becoming more aware of the problem as the value of ivory is slowly lowering and hopefully couples of year this trade wont even exist anymore or at least it will almost be insignificant.
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