Hong Kong is currently being pressured to crush their 30 tonnes of ivory stockpile like what the United States recently did.
In fact, Hong Kong’s Endangered Species Advisory Committee (ESAC) had met to discuss what to do with its ivory stockpile. The options were to crush, crush and incinerate, or just leave it.
With Hong Kong being the gateway to China where ivory demands are high, the Hong Kong Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department records increasing amounts of ivory seizures in the past few years. In 2013, 7,230kg of ivory was seized, compared to just 837kg in 2009 – the total amount of ivory stockpile is well over 30 tonnes. The increase is caused by China’s growing affluent population hence more demand and more shipments going through Hong Kong.
NGO Hong Kong for Elephants has launched a campaign, Blood Ivory Out of HK Schools, petitioning to the government to crush and incinerate its ivory stockpile. The spokesperson for Hong Kong for Elephants believe that by doing so would send a message to keep elephants alive and prevent ivory from the stockpile to leak into the black market.
Whatever is decided, anything to stop the poaching of elephants is important as numbers show nearly 25-30,000 elephants were killed for their tusks in 2012 and with the estimated population at 370-500,000, it’s likely they’ll go extinct in a decade or so.
Source: Annamiticus
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
