In 1989 the Convention on International Trade in Engaged Species, stated that the African elephant could reach extinction within the next fifteen years. This extinction was due to the horrific poaching problem and the worldwide demand for ivory. Thus, a moratorium was created that restricted the selling and trading of ivory. This caused the poaching of elephants to decrease, while also causing the ivory market prices to drop. Therefore, the first step into the trial to stop the poaching of these precious animals began. But, in 1997 there was a new law put into effect that made the selling and trading of ivory legal, if it was ‘regulated’. This in turn, caused the poaching of elephants to once again drastically increase in the late nineties. Before the nineties, there had already been approximately 75,000 elephants killed for their tusks. After this the round number of 20,000 was found to be the number of elephants who were killed annually. Some may have thought that the ban of ivory was not a financially good choice because the demand for ivory is so high. Because these elephant tusks are so hard to obtain, this makes it extremely valuable to many people around the world. The demand for ivory has increased from two hundred dollars per kilo in two thousand five, to more then seven hundred kilos this year. However, the elephants go though an extreme amount of pain and suffering from this process. To remove the tusks, the poacher either kills the animal first or they remove the tusk by digging into their face and using the entire tusk. Then they are then left to die, mainly from infection. Just this year alone around twenty to twenty-four tons of ivory was smuggled into African and Asian countries. The media attempts to cover up this outrage, but we would be naive to think that this situation does not exist. Some people choose to disregard the fact that so many elephants are being harmed in the process of obtaining ivory because there is a huge amount of money to be made along with the smuggling. Even though the poaching is regulated, it is hard to monitor groups of armed men in dense forests. It is technically illegal for the poachers to kill the elephant without using any of their “meat”, but this does not stop them from having massacre sites with piled up, dead elephants with their tusks removed and bleeding extensively. Because the ivory trade has its limits, the poachers have saved ivory in basements and storage rooms where they keep it and wait for the prices to rise. By the looks of things, the selling and trade of ivory does not look like it will completely end anytime in the near future. Besides the fact that ivory brings in large amounts of money, if the elephants have a chance of survival the trade will have to be completely prohibited. Some have even discovered that if the elephant population keeps decreasing they will be extinct in ten short years, by 2020. The controversy between whether the economy would be greatly affected in parts of Africa and Asia by the stopping of ivory trade can be debated with the fact that tens of thousands of elephants are dying each year.
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