Since October 2004, customs officials have seized 41 tons of ivory- a total that, according to experts, amounts to only one-tenth of the illegal ivory trade.

Shortly before the smuggled Singapore shipment was discovered, Zambia's official statistics cited the number of elephants killed illegally at only 135 in the previous 10 years. But Wasser's data tell a different story: "Our calculations show that between 3,000 and 6,500 elephants were poached for this single ivory shipment."

Either Zambia officials themselves are deeply involved in the trade or they simply don't have a clue what is going on in their country!
Both of which makes me furious and is inexcusable in todays day and age

I believe officials all over Africa are looking the other way (at the very least) and sometimes participating in this epidemic. For years Burundi, which has 1 elephant in a zoo, was the leading exporter of ivory. This just shows you that if you give permission to one country to export, once they go over that limit they will just get rid of the rest in another.

Keep in mind also that some countries traded their ivory for guns and drugs.

One suggestion that I found interesting was that all wildlife NGO's buy out all existing stockpiles in Africa - AND BURN IT - thus there would be no stockpiles to tempt people to sell, hopefully causing the ivory trade to crash.

It's too bad that someone can't invent a "medication" that could be darted into elephants and rhinos which would be safe to them and yet over time make ivory porous so that when attempts were make to carve it, it would just crumble - I know - dream on.

Nico: Read The Eye of the Elephant (Zambia) and Cry of the Kalahari by Delia and Mark Owens. The officials knew well what was going on. In fact the Owenses were expelled from Botswana because of telling of what was going on.

Thanks Jan - I will make a note of these books.

The stock pile is a very hard one; to think about it; lets take Diamonds as an example - I know that diamonds are not animals or suffer so forgive my example but it all I can come up with this morning in my head -

If the diamond market puts all its diamonds out in one go - the market will drop and the prices of the diamonds will drop and will not be worth the same or have similar financial values.
Therefore the diamond market is controlled and only X amount is allowed onto the market on a yearly basis.

I will be worried that this could have the same effect on the Ivory market - but the opposite -
Lets me try and explain further.

If all of a sudden all governments burn and get rid of ALL Ivory held - this means that there will be none left which means that those "sick" traders will increase the demand on the illegal market for killing more elephants as there is no Ivory left.
This will increase the prices and push more poachers out there to kill for more profit.

So putting the stock pile on the oipen market will break this situation as there will be plenty of Ivory available - hopefully pushing paochers not to kill. However, I am sure this will only be resolved in the short term as once this is used up this will all re start again.
Please note that these are thoughts - that perhaps could slow down the Ivory market for some time.

The only real option is bloody harsh (forgive my English) heavy sentences which really make those responsible think 3 times before acting or poaching.
Very hard situation this - and it is not only with Elephants but with lots of wonderful other animals that are in the same situation.

Perhaps to contradict what I stated earlier – on this very hard subject of Ivory trade, I did a news paper search and came up with this report from this week:

By James Ratemo – Monday – May 21st 2007 from the Standard News Paper Kenya

The International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw) has warned against re-introduction of ivory trade in Africa, saying elephants are endangered.

Kenya and Mali have proposed a 20-year ban on ivory trade to keep off poachers.
To pass the strong message, Ifaw has sent a life-size elephant dummy to this year’s Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) conference of Parties Meeting, beginning next month in The Hague, Netherlands.

Dubbed Mjumbe (ambassador), the dummy made from confiscated bare wire snares was unveiled on Friday by Kenya’s Tourism and Wildlife minister, Mr Morris Dzoro, to lead the campaign against ivory trade and remind Cites delegates of the non-trade related threats that still plague the African elephant.

Arguing that trade in select countries opens up markets, both legal and illegal, and lures poachers.
"It would be suicidal to allow sale of ivory as proposed by Southern Africa countries," said Dzoro.
Death knell for elephants

Citing a study Ifaw carried out this year in Europe, Asia and the United States that exposed the sale of 2,200 ivory products, Ifaw’s regional director for East Africa, Mr James Isiche, said any resumption of ivory trade would be "the death knell for elephants".

"It is even more frightening that advances in information technology now make it possible to stealthily procure illegal ivory products over the Internet," Isiche said.
He said 20,000 elephants were killed every year and lucrative black markets for contraband ivory still existed.

"These markets are sustained by law enforcement limitations and systemic vices such as corruption that make it possible to kill elephants and smuggle their tusks across international borders almost unhindered," said Isiche.

As every other sane person, I condemn poaching of elephants - or any other animal for that matter. However, while discussing some figures in my head I came to the following:

It is being stated that 20,000 elephants a year are being poached (Personally I think this figure is highly inflated but for arguments sake let us take this figure). It is also generally accepted by the same doomsday sayers that there are a total of approx 500,000 - 600,000 elephants in Africa. Reserchers and biologists state the average population reproductive rate in elephants to be 7% (This is different from birth rate!).

A quick calculation reveals that 7% of 600,000 equals 42,000. In other words, if 42,000 elephants die every year from all the different causes combined, then the population will stay at the same level!!!! Hardly a situation to be over-alarmed with!

The other thing to remember is that smuggled ivory can take years to reach the end user. So when we read that 6 tonnes of illegal ivory was intercepted which equates to about 700 - 800 elephants killed, it does not mean those elephants were killed in one year! On the contrary, it may take several years for that ivory to be accumulated in one pace and then smuggled through borders. The majority of these large illegal ivory arrests come from old stock dating back to the peak period of ivory poaching mid to late eighties.

So putting the stock pile on the oipen market will break this situation as there will be plenty of Ivory available - hopefully pushing paochers not to kill. However, I am sure this will only be resolved in the short term as once this is used up this will all re start again.

Actually, ivory stocks are a renewable resource. Every ivory piece recovered from dead elephants whether by natural cause or other would go back into Gov stockpiles. A steady supply of legal ivory would ensure demand is met without the need for illegal ivory stocks. End-of-the line prices would need to be similar to black market prices to discourage competition. There are sufficient funds to implement control systems and ensure transparency.