[wildtrade] elephant-size loopholes sustain thai ivory trade

[Vern Weitzel]

http://www.panda.org/wwf_news/news/?uNewsID=167622

elephant-size loopholes sustain thai ivory trade

Posted on 19 June 2009

© Daniel Stiles / TRAFFIC Southeast Asia


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The report also raises concerns that legal provisions governing trade in 
domesticated elephants are providing cover for illegal trade in wild-caught, 
highly-endangered Asian elephants from both Thailand and neighbouring Myanmar.

TRAFFIC’s survey documented over 26,000 worked ivory products for sale in local 
markets, with many more retail outlets dealing in ivory products than were 
observed during market surveys carried out in 2001.

Market surveys found 50 more retail outlets offering ivory items in Bangkok and 
Chiang Mai in 2008 than the previous year. However, overall there was less 
worked ivory openly on sale than in 2001.

“Thailand has consistently been identified as one of the world’s top five 
countries most heavily implicated in the illicit ivory trade, but shows little 
sign of addressing outstanding issues,” said Tom Milliken, of TRAFFIC, which 
oversees a global monitoring programme, the Elephant Trade Information System 
(ETIS), for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild 
Fauna and Flora (CITES).

“Thailand needs to reassess its policy for controlling its local ivory markets 
as currently it is not implementing international requirements to the ongoing 
detriment of both African and Asian Elephant populations,” said Milliken.

“Since 2004, the Thai government has only reported two ivory seizure cases 
totaling 1.2 tonnes of raw ivory.”

Thailand’s capital, Bangkok, a major tourist destination, has emerged as the 
main hub for illegal ivory activities, accounting for over 70 percent of the 
retail outlets in Thailand offering ivory items for sale.

The report includes new information on ivory workshops—eight in Uthai Thani, one 
each in Chai Nat and Payuha Kiri, and three in Bangkok—between them employing 
dozens of carvers in the production of ivory jewelry, belt buckles and 
knife-handles. Much of the ivory being worked is illegally imported from Africa.

Some workshop owners boasted close ties with European knife makers, while others 
reported sending ivory, steel and silver items to the US for sale in gun shops.

“The Thai Government needs to crack down on this serious illegal activity and 
stop allowing people to abuse the law,” said Dr Colman O’Criodain, WWF 
International’s analyst on wildlife trade issues.

“A good first step would be to put in place a comprehensive registration system 
for all ivory in trade and for live elephants”.

The study also uncovered reports of traders buying wild-caught elephant calves 
for use in Bangkok as “beggars” on the streets in major tourist centres, or 
selling them to elephant camps and entertainment parks.

Hundreds of live elephants are known to have been illegally imported from 
Myanmar in recent years, to be sold to elephant trekking companies catering to 
adventure tourism in Thailand. The capture of wild elephants has been banned in 
Thailand since the 1970s, but such trade usually goes undetected because 
domesticated elephants do not have to be registered legally until they are eight 
years of age.

The study also found that over a quarter of all live elephant exports from 
Thailand between 1980 and 2005 could have been illegal due to incomplete and 
inaccurate declarations made on the documentation required under CITES.

“There must be greater scrutiny of the live elephant trade if enforcement 
efforts are to have any impact at all,” said Chris R. Shepherd, TRAFFIC 
Southeast Asia’s Acting Director.

“Thailand and Myanmar should work together, and with urgency, to address 
cross-border trade problems,” he added.