{"id":31490,"date":"2016-12-31T09:18:11","date_gmt":"2016-12-31T09:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/china-announces-ban-on-ivory-trade-by-end-of-2017\/"},"modified":"2016-12-31T09:18:05","modified_gmt":"2016-12-31T09:18:05","slug":"china-announces-ban-on-ivory-trade-by-end-of-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/china-announces-ban-on-ivory-trade-by-end-of-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"China announces ban on ivory trade by end of 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{China has announced a ban on all ivory trade and processing activities by the end of 2017.}<\/p>\n<p>Conservation groups hailed the decision as &#8220;historic&#8221; and a &#8220;game-changer&#8221; for the future of elephants.<\/p>\n<p>The move follows a resolution at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) in South Africa in October.<\/p>\n<p>China has the biggest ivory market in the world &#8211; some estimates suggest 70% of the world&#8217;s trade ends up there.<\/p>\n<p>Ivory can reach $1,100 (\u00a3850) per kilogram in China.<\/p>\n<p>{{&#8216;Great leadership&#8217;}}<\/p>\n<p>China&#8217;s State Council announced the details of the ban on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>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<p>Conservation group WWF welcomed the latest news, calling it a &#8220;historic announcement&#8230; signalling an end to the world&#8217;s primary legal ivory market and a major boost to international efforts to tackle the elephant poaching crisis in Africa&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Elly Pepper, deputy director of wildlife trade for the Natural Resources Defense Council, praised China for its &#8220;great leadership&#8221; on the issue.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Setting such an aggressive timeline to close &#8211; once and for all &#8211; the largest domestic ivory market in the world is globally significant.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a game changer and could be the pivotal turning point that brings elephants back from the brink of extinction,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>While the international market in ivory has been closed since 1989, legal domestic markets have continued in many countries around the world.<\/p>\n<p>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<p>China had backed the Cites resolution in October, surprising participants with the strength of its support for a ban.<\/p>\n<p>Some delegates said Beijing had wanted an even stronger resolution.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-17373 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_93184522_036625295-1.jpg\" alt=\"Kenya set alight 105 tonnes of ivory tusks in April to help tackle the illegal trade\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{China has announced a ban on all ivory trade and processing activities by the end of 2017.} Conservation groups hailed the decision as &#8220;historic&#8221; and a &#8220;game-changer&#8221; 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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-31490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31490\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31490"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=31490"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=31490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}