History Of The Ivory Trade In The Congo
|
The number of elephants was about 1.2 million in the year 1979, and has now decreased to a mere 600,000. This happened because people started exploiting elephants for skin and ivory. There is increase in poaching of elephants.
|
Harvesting elephants illegally is called elephant poaching. There are evidences that poaching has decreased the population of elephants in a decade.
Elephant poaching is happening because the leak of monitoring and enforcement by the state. In the year 1978, the African elephant was on the appendix 2 of the Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species because it had declined in number and in economic value.
The nations belonging to Europe and the United States have imposed a law of moratorium on importing ivory in June 1989 in order to protect the elephants from poaching and subsequent extinction. The African elephant was also made a part of appendix 1. The appendix 1 banned trading the African elephant products and other animals which were becoming extinct.
Ivory trading was banned from 18 January 1990. The reservations were made by the African countries like Botswana, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Namibia and South Africa. South African Center for Ivory Marketing was also formed by them in an effort to cut illegal ivory trade.
The ban on the trade affected differently on different states, but it was not as effective as it was planned because the people in the ivory trade business have the incentive to overcome the ban.
It is reported by the government of Kenya that the number of poached elephants increased from 145 to 232 in 2009. In Congo, the military of Congo is putting all its efforts to end the poaching activities.
More Articles :
|
