Thailand's PM Vows to Cease Ivory Trade

Thailand's prime minister has promised to ban the legal trade of ivory for the first time.

The legal market in Thailand is contributing to high levels of poaching in Africa.

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra made the vowed during the opening meeting of the 178-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, in Bangkok.

She said the government would closely monitor local market on Thailand's local tusk trade by systematically registering local elephants and ivory products.

However, she did not give any timeline. And according to Theerapat Prayurasiddhi, deputy director of Thailand's department of parks and wildlife, there were no immediate plans to implement a domestic ban.

There are approximately 6,500 elephants in Thailand, of which 2,500 live in the wild.

CITES banned the international ivory trade in 1989. However, the policy never touched the domestic markets like Thailand's, where trading is still legal as long as only ivory from domesticated elephants is involved. And campaign groups and experts say that this law is being used to promote ivory taken illegally from Africa.

Roughly 70 years ago, up to 5 million elephants lived in sub-Saharan Africa. Nowadays, merely several hundred thousand are remaining. In 2012, 32,000 elephants were killed on the continent, according to the Born Free Foundation, which says black-market ivory are sold for approximately $1,300 per pound.

CITES Director-General John Scanlon said the killing of African elephants and rhinos was among the group's biggest worries. "This criminal activity poses a serious threat to the stability and economies of these countries. It also robs these countries of their natural heritage," Scanlon said. "These criminals must be stopped, and we need to prepare to deploy the sorts of techniques that are used to combat the trade in narcotics to do so."

Thailand is believed to be second only to China as a market for tusks.