Thailand to Cease Legal Ivory Trade: Elephants Helped by CITES

Elephants are getting a little extra help, thanks to the international conference on endangered species over the weekend. Thailand pledged Sunday to shut down its legal, local ivory trade, a practice that has encouraged poachers and has endangered elephants.

More than 178 countries gathered in Bangkok for the 40^th convention of the international trade in endangered species (CITES). The meeting didn't come too soon, either. The trade in endangered species has continued for years, including birds, pelts and other animal parts. Of particular note, though, is the ivory trade. Each day, between 50 and 100 elephants are killed in Africa for their tusks, according to The Telegraph. And about 25,000 elephants are now killed for their tusks each year, according to CITES.

"As we enter 2013, the world's natural resources are under threat as never before. We know from the data and analysis presented to this meeting that the illegal killing of the African elephant and rhino, and the related illegal trade in their ivory and horn, has reached shocking levels in the past few years," said the Duke of Cambridge in an interview with The Telegraph.

The international trade in ivory has been outlawed since 1989, but tusks often wind up on the black market. Existing stockpiles of the ivory have been auctioned off only twice with the most recent being in 2008.

While the general sentiment seems to be in favor of banning the trade, there are those who disagree. A small number of mostly southern African nations argue that allowing a legal, closely regulated ivory trade could actually help the elephants. Since illegal, poached tusks fetch such high prices on black markets in China and other Asian countries, having a legal trade could deflate these prices somewhat. The nations argue that if tusks were taken from animals that died of natural causes, it could mean that local farmers and villagers would have a financial reason to protect the elephants from poachers.

Yet any trade in ivory is highly unpopular with conservationist groups. In Thailand, activists submitted a 500,000-signature petition to Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. Hoping to shut down the legal trade of ivory taken from domesticated elephants that have died of natural causes, the groups finally pushed Thailand to its final decision. Yingluck announced that her government plans to implement new laws to outlaw any kind of trade in ivory.

While regulations grow, so does the trade. Seizures of contraband ivory destined for China have risen in recent years. In fact, customs officials in China said they intercepted $1.4 million of ivory shipped from Kenya just in January.

Whether or not these regulations work remains to be seen. The next CITES conference is scheduled for 2016.