China has announced a ban on all ivory trade and processing activities by the end of 2017.<\/p>\n
Conservation groups hailed the decision as \u201chistoric\u201d and a \u201cgame-changer\u201d for the future of elephants.<\/p>\n
The move follows a resolution at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) in South Africa in October.<\/p>\n
China has the biggest ivory market in the world – some estimates suggest 70 percent of the world\u2019s trade ends up there.<\/p>\n
Ivory can reach $1,100 (\u00a3850) per kilogramme in China.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s State Council announced the details of the ban on Friday.<\/p>\n
The commercial processing and sale of ivory will stop by 31 March, and all registered traders will then be phased out, bringing a full halt to the market by the end of the year.<\/p>\n
Conservation group WWF welcomed the latest news, calling it a \u201chistoric announcement signaling an end to the world\u2019s primary legal ivory market and a major boost to international efforts to tackle the elephant poaching crisis in Africa\u201d.<\/p>\n
Elly Pepper, deputy director of wildlife trade for the Natural Resources Defense Council, praised China for its \u201cgreat leadership\u201d on the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cSetting such an aggressive timeline to close – once and for all – the largest domestic ivory market in the world is globally significant.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a game changer and could be the pivotal turning point that brings elephants back from the brink of extinction,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
While the international market in ivory has been closed since 1989, legal domestic markets have continued in many countries around the world.<\/p>\n
A surge in the killing of elephants over the past seven years has seen populations across Africa shrink by a third, according to the recently published Great Elephant Census.<\/p>\n
China had backed the Cites resolution in October, surprising participants with the strength of its support for a ban.<\/p>\n
Some delegates said Beijing had wanted an even stronger resolution.\u2014BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
China has announced a ban on all ivory trade and processing activities by the end of 2017. Conservation groups hailed the decision as \u201chistoric\u201d and a \u201cgame-changer\u201d for the future of elephants. The move follows a resolution at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) in South Africa in October. China has the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":38314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38313"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38315,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38313\/revisions\/38315"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}