Myanmar's ivory trade challenges China's efforts to save African elephants

Myanmar's flourishing African ivory smuggling is putting immense pressure on China's effort to enforce a domestic ban on ivory trade, a report released by Save the Elephants revealed.

Researchers found around 51 shops openly displaying 14,846 ivory items for sale in Myanmar's Mong La, Mandalay, Yangon, Tachileik and Bagan cities.

 At Mong La, a town located on the notorious Golden Triangle, “the illegal ivory trade soared by a 63 percent increase in last three years,” the report said.

The Golden Triangle bisects the confluence of the Ruak and Mekong Rivers, bordering Myanmar, Laos and southern China, and is the second largest hub for cross-border smuggling of drugs in the world, according to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

The report titled “Myanmar's Growing Illegal Ivory Trade with China” reveals the booming ivory product sales at Mong La in the last few years, which has replaced Tachileik on the Thailand border as the place with the largest number of illegal worked ivory items.

Vendors selling carved ivory items, according to the report, stated that Chinese customers buy about 90 percent of what they sell.

Myanmar has more than 5,000 captive elephants, the largest captive elephant population in the world. The existing laws in the country allow trade of ivory procured from licensed elephants that have naturally died.

However, researchers found over a third of the ivory items available in Mong La shops were of African elephants.

“Rampant African ivory smuggling in Myanmar has put a lot of pressure on Chinese law enforcement agencies to ensure effective domestic ban on ivory. Awareness about the ivory ban along Golden Triangle region and a strict law enforcement are required to stop this brutal trade,” Lucy Vigne, a lead author of the report told CGTN.

“The authorities in Myanmar are not deterring ivory smugglers and trade in ivory and other endangered wildlife products that are running riot to meet the continued Chinese demand. This is against the international norms,” she added.

In a bid to control illegal cross-border activities, the Chinese government closed the official border crossing from China into Mong La in 2010.

The Chinese mainland banned the domestic trade of ivory, early this year, in an effort to control poaching in African countries. Its regions including Hong Kong and Taiwan enacted similar laws to combat the illegal ivory trade.

In Myanmar's illegal ivory market, researchers also saw intricate carvings and figurines that appeared to have been smuggled in from China where sales are now banned.

More than 20,000 African elephants are killed every year to satiate global demand for ivory. “Despite a great political commitment from the Chinese government and the moral leadership of influential citizens it will take continued united action to end the issue,” said Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save the Elephants.

“China's new laws have to be rigorously enforced, borders must be controlled, and everyone must be made aware of the terrible consequences of buying ivory,” he suggested.
Myanmar government, alarmed with the unprecedented increase in wildlife trade, burned seized ivory tusk and other wildlife products on Thursday in a bid to deter the smugglers.

“We know that over 20 countries around the world destroy illegal wildlife parts in this way. We want to wipe out the illegal market and let people know that if they trade unlawful items, they will be seized and destroyed," U Win Naing Thaw, director of Myanmar's Nature and Wildlife Conservation Department told Cambodia Times.

Esmond Martin, co-author of the report, and a conservationist known for his investigative work on ivory and rhino horn trade was murdered in Kenya in February this year.

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Burmese government burns illegal wildlife products worth $1.3 million in bid to deter traffickers

Law enforcement authorities in Burma have incinerated seized wildlife crime products with an estimated value of $1.3 million as part of wider crackdown on animal part trafficking.

Officials from the country’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation ceremonially set fire to a huge pyre of confiscated trafficked products made from animal parts, including elephant tusks, antelope horn and pangolin scales.

The items included 277 products made from ivory, 227 elephant and other wildlife’s bones, 45 pieces of different wildlife skins, 1,544 animal horns, 45.5kgs of pangolin scales, and 128 varieties of other animal parts.

Speaking during the ceremony, Burma’s Minister of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation U Ohn Win said: “”It is crucial to sustainably conserve our country’s natural resources, including land, water, forest, mountains and wildlife, for the sake of our future generations. We designate and establish protected areas for biodiversity conservation.”

The ministry said the ceremony was organised to help raise awareness of the threat posed by wildlife smuggling in Burma, and to dissuade people who might be tempted to become involved in the trafficking trade.

Burma is a major hub for wildlife smugglers, who use the country as a base from which to traffic illegal items made from animal parts to China and other Asian nations.

In a report published earlier this week, conservation charity Save the Elephants revealed that China’s recent crackdown on the ivory trade had fuelled a “prolific growth” in the illicit animal parts trade in the Burma-China border town of Mong La.

The study found that the number of new ivory items found for sale in the town had grown by 63% over the course of the past three years, and now accounts for over a third of the ivory seen in the country.

According to the report, Chinese visitors are able to smuggle ivory purchased in Mong La back to their home country with little fear of being caught.

It also noted that a computer-driven machine in one shop in the town enables Chinese customers to mass produce decorative products made out of ivory.

Lucy Vigne, lead author of the report, commented: “Poaching is a problem for elephants in Myanmar but the country also provides a largely unchecked conduit for illegal African ivory carved in the region to be smuggled into China, in violation of International Law.

“The authorities are not deterring ivory smugglers and trade in ivory and other endangered wildlife products that is running riot to meet the continued Chinese demand.”

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