A few days ago the Chinese Government came out in what appeared to be shocking news, but more appreciated as a brilliant start to 2017 for the conservation community and many people in the global tourism business, to make a historic announcement, bringing an end to the Nation’s domestic ivory trade by the end of this year.
In a report by UK’s The Guardian, dozens of trade venues throughout the Asian nation will be closed in the next three months, in a move activists are calling ‘a gamechanger’. Companies, processors, traders and agents that have been dealing in legal ivory trade will be phased out by the end of March this year, and it is planned that by the end of the year, all the legal commercial ivory traders shall be completely shut down.
It is agreeable that trade in ivory has for long resulted in the waning populations of elephants in many African countries, as the gentle giants have often been poached for their highly priced tusks that feed ivory markets beyond the African continent, especially those in Asia.