Outcomes: The EPI on Stopping the Ivory Trade

From our launch in 2014, as this report has shown, we have worked to maintain the 1989 moratorium on commercial international ivory trade, close domestic ivory markets, and place ivory stockpiles beyond commercial use. The rationale for this strategy was to drive down demand for ivory, resulting in a fall in prices and consequent reduction in poaching.

Within a few years, the Elephant Protection Initiative had played an important role in securing agreements to close domestic ivory markets in several countries, including China and the United States. China’s closure of its market in 20171, followed by a sharp drop in prices, is widely seen as a key moment in reducing demand for ivory, and hence elephant poaching. It is, however, extremely difficult to prove causal relationships between poaching and the closing of ivory markets or stockpile management. For example, a World Bank report of 2018 (Quy-Toan Do et al) argued there was no relation between the price of ivory and the rate of poaching, although others contest this conclusion. Nonetheless, there are compelling reasons to believe that EPI member states and the EPI Foundation have been successful in helping to curb elephant poaching, even if the method by which this was accomplished may have been more complex than simply driving down prices.

Ivory Prices

Ivory prices vary along the value chain, by destination country and over time. The ivory value chain can involve 6 different actors: poacher, broker, dealer, exporter, wholesaler and retailer for worked ivory. Between 2014 and 2018, a poacher in Asia would get US$93/kg on average, a broker US$125/kg, a dealer US$236/kg, an exporter US$387/kg, a wholesaler US$1,009/kg and a retailer selling worked ivory US$4,346/kg (UNODC, 2020). These mark-ups along the chain cover the various actors’ profits and costs. Let us take a closer look at China, an important destination for the illegal ivory trade during the last decade. In 2012, China adopted its “Ecological Civilisation” programme, which aimed to incorporate conservation into all policy, and launched public awareness campaigns on the importance of the environment.

In December 2017, China closed its domestic ivory markets and strengthened laws and penalties on wildlife offences. Under the new laws, the maximum penalty for ivory smuggling is a life sentence. (Yingwei Chen et al., 2023). Moreover, from 2013, the Chinese government helped launch a series of international law-enforcement operations, with the participation of 63 other countries and international organisations, tackling wildlife trafficking along the entire value chain. These resulted in more than 200 arrests and the seizure of more than 300 crates of trafficked endangered species, as well as 12 tons of ivory. Since then, China has continued to strengthen its cooperation with customs and police departments in countries along the ivory supply chain, which has resulted in many seizures and the indictment of major trafficking suspects (Zhen Miao et al., 2022).

Starting in 2012, the price of illegally traded ivory in China dropped sharply in anticipation of stricter government enforcement, and since then it has maintained a consistent downward trend (Zhen Miao et al., 2022). In Japan and Vietnam, meanwhile, the price of ivory underwent a similar decline, although in Vietnam, primarily due to relatively poor law enforcement, there has been a slight recovery in price in recent years (Zhen Miao et al., 2022). With the suppression of the largest market for illegal ivory and a consecutive reduction in demand, the benefits were soon felt in Africa.

In 1997, CITES established a Monitoring Illegal Killing of Elephants programme, commonly known as MIKE. One of its key components is the Proportion of Illegally Killed Elephants, or PIKE, which is an index of poaching pressure. Encouragingly, PIKE in African elephant range states started falling in 2011, first slowly due to a time lag, and in recent years more sharply. This positive sequence of events demonstrates the importance of coordinated action. The EPI, instrumental in the closure of domestic ivory markets, helped set the tone for many countries around the world to tighten laws related to the trafficking of wildlife and wildlife products, introduce stricter penalty systems, and contribute to collaborative international enforcement. Together, these measures reduced demand and drove down ivory prices.

Over the past 10 years, EPI member states, working with the EPI Foundation, have significantly contributed to maintaining the international moratorium on commercial ivory trade, the closure of domestic ivory markets, and helped keep ivory stockpiles from leaking onto the illegal market through stockpile management, safekeeping, and destruction. These measures have reduced ivory prices, but they’ve also sent a powerful public message, especially when combined with improved law enforcement, that has led to significantly lower demand and improved prospects for most of Africa’s elephants. But we need to remain vigilant. We need to further strengthen law enforcement along the entire value chain for ivory through enhanced levels of international cooperation, but we also need to focus more attention on a new crisis that has gradually emerged over the past two decades – human-elephant conflict (HEC).

Read the full 10-year report titled Ivory and Beyond: A Decade of Progress: https://www.elephantprotectioninitiative.org/_files/ugd/98e244_34a34722a0b4464fb1a47add929893ee.pdf