CAIRO - The illegal trade in ivory
continues in Egypt, with ivory products sold
openly in local tourist markets by traders who
operate with impunity and Chinese people the main
buyers, a new study by the conservation group
Traffic has found.
Earlier Traffic
studies, completed in 1998 and 2005, found the
biggest buyers of ivory in Egypt were Europeans,
particularly Italian and Spanish tourists. Western
visitors continue to buy, but the latest study
revealed that the Chinese are a new consumer group
with growing spending power and a strong taste for
carved elephant tusks.
"In 2005, the
Chinese were hardly buying any ivory. Now they
account for over half of
all sales," said Esmond Martin, a consultant on
endangered wildlife and the lead author of the
report.
The number of Chinese tourists and
expatriates in Egypt has grown significantly in
the past decade as the two countries increase
commercial ties and air links. In 2001, there were
only about 100 Chinese expatriates in Egypt. By
some estimates, there are now over 60,000 Chinese
expatriates and 100,000 tourists a year.
Ivory traders told researchers that
Chinese expatriates and tourists were their
principal buyers. One vendor said groups of
Chinese buyers would often spend $50,000 on ivory
during a single bargaining session.
The
report, published in the group's journal, suggests
that while the volume of elephant ivory seen in
Egyptian tourist markets has declined over the
past decade, the country remains a major hub in
the global ivory trade. Investigators who surveyed
two of the country's main tourist centers found
ivory craftsmen and vendors operating with little
risk of arrest.
"Egypt is one of the
largest illegal markets for elephant ivory in
Africa," the study noted. "Tusks are smuggled in,
mostly through Sudan, and sold to ivory workshops
in Cairo [where they are] openly carved and
displayed without any prosecution ensuing."
Trade in ivory was banned in 1990. An
Egyptian ministerial decree issued in 1999 makes
it illegal to import, export, or possess ivory
products, or to offer them for sale.
The
trade in ivory in Egypt "is completely illegal
without a permit, which has never been given,"
said Martin. "Unfortunately, there is absolutely
no law enforcement."
While customs
officers have occasionally seized elephant tusks
at Cairo airport, there have been no documented
confiscations of ivory items from retail outlets
since 2003. The last spot inspection of Cairo's
main tourist bazaar, carried out in 2010,
reportedly turned up only legal camel bone items,
leading the study's authors to suspect "market
surveillance is not spontaneous."
Posing
as tourists, two Traffic researchers counted more
than 8,000 ivory items openly for sale in Cairo's
bazaars, hotel souvenir shops and other tourist
outlets. Nearly 1,000 more ivory items were seen
in the southern Egyptian tourist city of Luxor.
The survey, conducted in March and April
2011, only counted ivory products on display. The
authors did not include ivory items that traders
showed to them if they had been concealed from
view when they entered the shop.
"We saw
many more ivory items in drawers, at the back of
shops, and in people's homes," Martin told Inter
Press Service (IPS). "In keeping with the
methodology of earlier studies, and to allow
comparison of the data sets, we did not include
these items in the count."
The most common
ivory products seen in Cairo were animal and human
figurines, jewellery, and carved scarab beetles.
Local craftsmen working with elephant tusks of
Central African origin were also found producing
ivory walking sticks, chopsticks, and hieroglyphic
name seals known as cartouches.
"Traders,
usually Sudanese, bring their ivory directly to
workshops and retail outlets and sell according to
the weight and quality of the tusks," the report
said.
It added that large tusks could
fetch over US$360 per kilogram, while damaged
tusks and fragments were selling for about $150
dollars per kilogram. Retail prices ranged from
about $20 for a simple ring to over $15,000 for a
one-meter carved ivory barge.
According to
Martin, lax enforcement and the influx of
heavyweight buyers is reversing gains made against
Egypt's illegal ivory trade in the early 2000s and
fueling the poaching of Africa's elephants.
Tourism was down at least a third in 2011 due to
political instability associated with the uprising
that led to the ouster of president Hosni Mubarak
last February.
"We can only expect the
volume of ivory traded to increase as tourist
numbers go up," Martin said.
The Traffic
report offered a number of recommendations aimed
at curtailing the ivory trade in Egypt. It urged
local authorities to increase public awareness of
the illegal ivory trade and to prosecute those
engaged in it. The authors also noted that
Egyptian law enforcement officers received
extensive training in 2010 to help them identify
elephant ivory.
"It is time these newly
learned skills were employed to confiscate raw and
worked ivory, in order to bring this flagrant
trade to an end," they said.
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