Forestry officials said yesterday that China has succeeded in
bringing its domestic trade in ivory under control in line with
international standards.
Zhao Xuemin, deputy director of the State Forestry
Administration (SFA), spoke about a series of measures implemented
to prevent illegal elephant tusks and ivory products from being
traded.
He said that the only ivory currently sold in China is from
stocks, since no elephant tusks can legally be imported into the
country.
"We have established a system of processing and selling legal
products in designated factories and shops," Zhao said.
He made the remarks in Beijing while meeting a three-member
delegation headed by John Macfarlane Seller, senior enforcement
officer from the secretariat of the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
The delegation is on a weeklong spot inspection of ivory trade
control measures.
"China will continue to cooperate with international
organizations and work with them in the field." Zhao said.
"As a member of CITES, we are serious about our duty to fight
the illicit ivory trade," added Wang Wei, another SFA official.
Following the convention's requirements, since 1981 China has
prohibited international trade in Asian elephant tusks.
The authorities started to control the amount of ivory imported
from Africa in 1990, and banned all international ivory trade on
the Chinese mainland in 1991.
Smuggling and selling of ivory has staged a comeback in a few
areas after CITES allowed a conditional resumption of the trade in
1997 and gave the green light for a one-time ivory sale to Japan
two years later.
Driven by huge profits, China was viewed by smugglers as a key
market for illegal ivory.
Today, it has seen its tiny population of Asian elephants grow
to between 150 and 250 following government protection, which was
intensified in early 1990.
The only places that Asian elephants live in the wild in China
are Xishuangbanna, Simao and Lincang, in the southern parts of Yunnan
Province, in the southwest of the country.
To protect them, three natural reserves have been set up with a
staff of 302 dedicated to preventing poaching.
(China Daily March 8, 2005)