As of December 31, Chinaâs legal, government-sanctioned ivory trade will come to a close.
China is widely believed to be the worldâs largest consumer of ivory, both legal and illegal, and it plays a major role in the yearly slaughter of some 30,000 African elephants by poachers.
An international ivory trade ban went into effect in 1990, but China continued to allowâand even promoteâivory sales within its borders.
Its legal ivory supply came primarily from a one-time sale of ivory from a handful of African countries in 2008.
But this legal domestic market has provided the opportunity for traffickers to slip illegally obtained ivory into Chinaâs legal supply.
âBut it has been observed that in China prices of ivory products have dropped considerably, and the market is already shrinking.â.
âIt is critical that efforts to enact the ivory trade ban are accompanied by efforts to change consumer behavior in order to reduce demand.â. »