Word: tradings
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...recent months the trade has been in retreat. Responding to growing public indignation, many industrialized nations have declared a moratorium on ivory imports. Among them: the U.S., France, West Germany, England, Canada and Australia. Japan and Hong Kong, the centers of the trade, followed suit. In Africa nations have declared war on the poachers. Thousands have been arrested, scores killed and tons of illicit tusks seized. Most significant of all, consumers are beginning to understand the link between their ivory baubles and trinkets and the mutilated carcasses from which they came. If regulation fails, consumer revulsion to ivory...
...Tanzania and Kenya. They lead the call for a worldwide ban, and are joined by conservation groups, including the World Wildlife Fund and Wildlife Conservation International. They argue that it will take decades for elephant herds to begin to recover, and that as long as there is any legal trade, the lure of profits will entice poachers and smugglers to beat the system...
...equally powerful coalition is opposed to a global ban. Those few southern African countries -- Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa -- that have not been beset by poachers cull their herds to maintain the elephant populations at optimum levels. That culling produces legally traded ivory. Those countries say a ban would punish them for the corruption and inefficiency of other nations. Ivory traders and retailers, of course, also oppose a comprehensive ban, hoping to save an industry with annual revenues estimated at $500 million to $1 billion worldwide. They are joined by the CITES secretariat, a Lausanne- based bureaucracy that monitors...
Even if the necessary two-thirds of the delegates at the CITES meeting vote to declare the elephant an endangered species, nations can exempt themselves from a trade ban without penalty. That is what the southern African nations have said they will do if a compromise cannot be reached. The real danger is that other countries may also break rank. The more porous the ban, the more the opportunities for illegal trading. Already South Africa and Botswana are on the smugglers' routes. An ambiguous result in Lausanne could embolden the trade and undermine enforcement efforts in Africa. Time...
Over recent decades the trade became concentrated in the Far East, where ivory ornaments are highly prized. Until this year's trade curbs, Japan, the largest consumer, took in some 40% of the world's ivory, in contrast to about one-third for the U.S. and Europe together. Last year Japanese carvers turned an estimated 64 tons of tusks into as many as a million hanko, or personalized name seals. Much of this ivory was bought from Hong Kong, which has long been the world's ivory marketplace. Between 1979 and 1987, Hong Kong imported 3,900 tons. That represents...