Dear friends of the rainforests, the EU likes to see itself as a conservation leader, but it has a blind spot for the ivory business. While many countries around the world have banned the trade, Europe still permits the sale, import and export of existing “antique” ivory. Tons of ivory are traded within the EU and exported to Asia – a flourishing market that gives criminals a perfect opening to launder the tusks of freshly killed elephants.
Many people assume that elephants are poached in Africa and their ivory is sold to Asia – and that Europe is completely out of the picture. In fact, Europe is a hub for both the legal and illegal trade in ivory.
The sale, the import and export of existing ivory stock is legal in Europe – making it relatively simple for organized criminals to use the trade to launder illegal ivory from poached elephants.
Ivory is openly available for sale in the EU at auctions, in antique shops and online. Some EU companies are even specialized in purchasing and exporting ivory to Asia: more than seven tons of ivory and over 12,000 ivory carvings were exported to Hong Kong alone over the last two years.
No one can say how much illegal ivory is being laundered on the European market, or how many elephants have been killed for it.
In two recent conferences, the international community called on all governments to shut down their domestic ivory markets. The EU has not complied with these demands and continues to undermine the global struggle to save the elephants.
Please call on the EU to ban the ivory trade completely. We need to kill the trade – before the trade kills the last elephants!
Europe is
making itself an accessory to poachers. Please tell the EU to ban the ivory trade
completely – no exceptions, no loopholes. We need to kill the trade
before the trade kills the last elephants!
Thanks for being involved, Reinhard Behrend | ||