Crush and Burn: A History of the Global Crackdown on Ivory [View all]

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http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/01/crush-and-burn-a-history-of-the-global-crackdown-on-ivory/283310/



It's an unlikely and ambitious government project: Over the next two years, Hong Kong will embark on the world's largest ivory burn, setting 28 tons of illegally harvested tusks aflame to signal a shift in its valuation of elephants. As National Geographic reports, this is actually the latest in a string of public ivory disposals around the world. China crushed six tons of tusks and ivory ornaments on January 6; the United States smashed six tons in November 2013; and the Philippines burned five tons in June 2013, making history as the first "ivory-consuming nation" to destroy almost all of its national stock. Gabon burned its stockpile in June 2012.

All this comes after elephant poaching and ivory smuggling reached unprecedented levels in 2011, a year in which at least 25,000 African elephants were killed for their tusks, according to a statistician involved in monitoring illegal elephant killings. By early 2013, terms like "blood ivory" and "African Elephant Crisis" were on the lips of conservationists and politicians alike.

That's about when the U.S. embarked on a period of frenzied activity to combat the ivory trade. In July, President Obama established a task force on wildlife trafficking and committed $10 million for anti-poaching and anti-smuggling efforts in Africa. A few months later, Hillary Clinton announced a separate $80-million, three-year program aimed at "stamping out" elephant poaching and the ivory trade. Claiming that African forest elephants could be extinct within 10 years unless the poaching stopped, Clinton characterized the situation not only as "an ecological disaster" but also as a threat to political and economic stability throughout Africa and Asia. In November, amid hundreds of cameras and reporters, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service pulverized six tons of elephant ivory—a stockpile accumulated over 24 years of domestic law-enforcement seizures.

China soon followed suit—a particularly big deal because the country has been the world's largest consumer of illegal ivory for the past decade. And now Hong Kong is getting in on the action as well, as are some European countries. Still, it's worth keeping in mind that ivory-burning isn't an entirely new trend. Kenya took the first major stand against the ivory trade back in 1989 by torching 12 tons of elephant tusks in Nairobi National Park. The country's president, Daniel arap Moi, lit the flames himself. "I appeal to people all over the world to stop buying ivory,'' he told the press.