Poaching is a big problem for the last remaining herds. Ivory carvings and trinklets are in great demand and reach high market prices. Particularly for rich and new-rich Chinese and Vietnamese ivory represents a status symbol. While in the most countries in the world ivory trade is illegal or regulated, it is completely legal in China.
Ivory for sale at the Thai - Burmese border near Pretchuap Khiri Khan. In Thailand are 1,500 domesticated and registered elephant bulls living; they provide less than a 100 pairs of tusks per year. Despite that there are annually 5,000 pairs of ivory traded on the Thai markets. Where is the huge difference coming from? Image by Asienreisender, 2010
It is against the law to sell ivory coming from African elephants (and generall from abroad) in Thailand, but it's legal to sell ivory from domestic Thai elephants. That's a big invitation for laundering African ivory in Thailand. As the WWF recently claimed, there are huge amounts of African ivory sold in Thai shops. The environmental organisation therefore demands the total abolishment of ivory trade in Thailand.
On March 4th 2013 started a meeting of 176 representatives of 176 countries in Bangkok (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species conference, CITES). They discussed global wildlife trade issues, including the elephant poaching crisis. The WWF started an online petition to get a million digital signatures to present them to the Thai primeminister Yingluck Shinawatra in order to abolish ivory trade completely in Thailand.
Well, it could contribute to close one of the main markets for the product to protect the African elephant. Until the 4th of March the petition brought 588,000 votes. They are presented to Ms Shinawatra. In a first statement she agreed to close the door for ivory trade in Thailand generally, but she didn't give a timeline. In a speech she claimed, "no one care[s] about elephants more than Thailand". Well, everyone in the audience knew that it is obviously not so. Before the beginning of the conference a number of conservation groups, including the WWF, urged the CITES to punish Thailand for not doing enough to stop illegal ivory trade. The bigger trouble seems to be that China is not on the list of countries to be punished.
In an article on May 9th, 2014, the 'Neue Zürcher Zeitung' reported of the confiscation of three tons of ivory in the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville. The ivory came on a boat from Malaysia, but it's supposed to be of African origin. Cambodia is as well a transitland for African ivory towards Vietnam and China.
By the way: many people believe, elephants would loose their teeths from time to time and they would grow after again. That's wrong. Ivory comes from death elephants or from those whose tusks were cut. In this case they don't grow again. That's actually known since centuries. Even the Chinese envoy of China in Angkor Thom, Zhou Daguan, mentioned that in his report more than 700 years ago.