Rising demand for ivory in China has led to the slaughter of 100,000 African elephants between 2010 and 2012,
according to a report by Save the Elephants and The Aspinall Foundation.
“China holds the key to the future of elephants — without China’s leadership in ending demand for ivory Africa’s elephants could disappear from the wild within a generation,” Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save the Elephants, said in a statement.
According to the report, the wholesale price of raw tusks has tripled since 2010 and the retail price for ivory increased 13.5 times in Beijing and eight times in Shanghai between 2002 and 2014.
“The growing legal ivory trade in China is providing a smokescreen for illegal activity. The number of authorized factories and retail outlets has quadrupled in the last decade, but illegal shops outnumbered legal ones by a factor of three in Beijing and a factor of eight in Shanghai,” the report said, adding that while the Chinese government has increased enforcement of the ivory trade, laws still are not adequately enforced.
More than 20,000 African
elephants were poached in 2013, exceeding population growth, Bloomberg News reported.
Prince William spoke against the poaching of elephants at World Bank International Corruption Hunters Alliance Conference in Washington on Monday. He called the illegal wildlife trade “one of the most insidious forms of
corruption and criminality in the world today,” The Independent reported.
Chinese basketball star Yao Ming has been enlisted to help raise awareness about the connection between ivory trinkets sold in China and the death of elephants in Africa.
Twitter users expressed anger about the deaths of 100,000 elephants.
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