The Agony and the Ivory

In the last eight years, since the international ivory trade ban of 1989, any ivory object an American brought home from a foreign country would have been snatched by U.S. Customs at the border--unless it was a documented antique more than 100 years old or trophy tusks carried in by a big game hunter who’d bought a legal elephant shooting permit for $45,000.

None of that has changed.

What has changed in the last few weeks is the public’s perception about the ban. Because of a policy shift made three weeks ago at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species conference in Zimbabwe, some tourists now think the international ivory ban has been lifted and that it’s OK to buy ivory on their summer travels.

It hasn’t. And it’s not.

“I was changing planes in Johannesburg coming back from the CITES conference,” says Patricia Fisher, public affairs officer with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the branch of the Department of the Interior that handles these matters at U.S. Customs checks. “Some Americans saw my CITES bag and said, ‘It’s OK to buy ivory now, right?’ And I said, ‘No. You can’t do that. It’s still illegal.’ ”

The source of this confusion was the new CITES agreement that allows three southern African nations--Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe--to make a onetime sale of ivory stockpiles to Japan in 1999. The lot of 60 metric tons--made up of tusks confiscated from poachers and from elephants that either died naturally or were culled to manage herds because of overpopulation--is estimated to be worth $30 million.

The agreement was reached after years of contentious debate over one of the world’s most passionate ecological issues, and was made as a reward to those countries for their successful elephant conservation programs. Proceeds will go to help fund those programs.

None of this ivory will ever reach our shores.

Terms of the sale prohibit Japan from reexport. Anything carved from the stockpiled material--like hanko (name seals used to stamp red ink signatures on documents), netsuke (ornamental cord clasps worn at the waist) or other decorative objects and curios--cannot travel legally outside Japan.

The American, French, Australian and Israeli CITES members were among those firmly against the proposal because they believed it would lead to the resumed illegal slaughter of elephants, slaughter that depleted Africa’s great herds by about half through the bloody 1980s. The eventual agreement was prompted in part by a unified front of African nations.

Also a factor: Members from countries including Japan and Switzerland argued that rich Western nations should not impose their own wildlife conservation standards on developing African countries.

It was hailed by some as a common-sense solution to some very real problems. While the elephant is endangered in much of the world, the situation is reversed in southern Africa. There, an over-population of the large voracious herbivores is said to be threatening the ecosystem; in rural areas the animals are damaging crops and trampling people.

Discussion now turns to the future of general ivory trade and if it ever can be legalized again.

There is continuing talk about whether the burgeoning elephant population in southern Africa can become a managed, sustainable resource, giving villagers financial incentive to control a limited ivory harvest while protecting their elephants from being wiped out by poachers.

But the specter of abuse looms large in any discussion and makes conservationists leery of predicting ivory’s return even under the most well-intentioned guidelines. Some Asian countries, notably India, fear that a lift of the embargo would encourage elephant slaughter in their countries.

“Everyone we’ve talked to is nervous,” says Ginette Hemley, director of International Wildlife Policy at the World Wildlife Fund. “It’s the first step toward further consideration of other proposals. The concern that we have is, ‘Will this impact elephants in other parts of Africa?’ It could send a message to poachers that the ivory market is opened back up.”

“It’s easy to launder ivory,” says Mike Osborn, a supervisory wildlife inspector for Southern California who works closely with customs agents. He and others believe it will be many years before management techniques can be standardized and certified so that black market ivory is identified and excluded from legal trade.

“There needs to be a very good system to trace where ivory comes from,” he says. “Was it poached and smuggled? Where did this come from? These systems break down because borders in Africa are wide open. There was too much poached ivory in the legal ivory system.”

“We’re dealing with sub-Saharan Africa,” says CITES policy regulation specialist Mark Phillips, who already is seeing the fallout from this first limited agreement. “Not everyone will understand that it’s a onetime only sale from three countries. It works well on paper, but we’re not dealing with an on-paper situation.

“Poaching was going up in anticipation of the conference and in anticipation of the down-listing [of endangered status] of elephants. That doesn’t bode well.”

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No matter what happens globally, Americans should remember that U.S. laws have sovereignty on U.S. soil. The African Elephant Conservation Act, passed by Congress in 1988, authorizes prohibition of any ivory import or export. Within U.S. borders, however, it is legal to buy ivory that arrived here before the 1989 international ban.

But buyers should ask for documentation. Purchasing undocumented ivory smuggled in since 1989 is the same, essentially, as buying a stolen car, experts say.

“Ivory sales within the U.S. have never been prohibited, but if we can show the ivory you bought was just smuggled in, we can confiscate it,” explains John Neal, senior special agent in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s division of law enforcement. “You need a sales receipt to show the ivory was within the country prior to the ban.”

While demand in the traditional Asian markets remains steady, many Americans have developed a distaste for ivory. Popularity of the precious organic material, prized since prehistoric times, plummeted here in the 1980s when newspapers and the nightly news showed the massive elephant slaughter.

Says Hemley: “In its peak year, around 1985, 1986, as much as a thousand tons of ivory left Africa each year. And 90% of it was illegal. It caused the deaths of up to 80,000 elephants each year.”

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To many, ivory--once used for everything from buttons and billiard balls to piano keys--became unfashionable and unethical.

And even if it should become legal again, some stores that once carried it are circumspect about ever carrying it again. Picket lines and passionate customer sentiment in the late ‘80s had a profound effect.

“I was a buyer for Neiman Marcus at the time and we did have ivory. I made the decision to discontinue it around 1987,” says Jamin Whitaker, now the retailer’s associate divisional merchandise manager in fashion jewelry. Asked whether she’d consider buying it again if became legal, she hesitated.

“I’m suspicious. As long as there is any question about origin, I don’t feel comfortable offering it. I should never say never, but even if down the road it became legal, there would have to be a strong education process. The general population today is very sensitive to the issue and to re-educate them in the opposite direction is difficult. The average consumer wants to do the right thing and wants to be ethical.”

When asked if she would consider buying ivory, Chinatown shopper Lani Ciarlo was adamant: “I wouldn’t buy a piece if you told me I could have Bill Gates in the deal.” She held out her arm to show her purchases, a gold ring and bracelet. “I came here to buy gold jewelry. No animal died for these.”

That sentiment pleases conservation proponents, who believe that any increase in demand will help rekindle the dark side of the ivory business.

“The link is very clear that ivory comes at a price,” Hemley says. “And we have a responsibility to know where it comes from.”