EBay Bans Cross-Border Ivory Sales
ARTHUR MAX, The Associated Press
June 5, 2007

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- The online auction house eBay Inc. said Tuesday it will ban cross-border trade of ivory products, following a study by a wildlife group that found nine out of 10 of the items sold on the Internet is probably illegal.

The company also will alert traders on its Web site that they may need to prove they are legally allowed to sell their ivory products, spokeswoman Nicola Sharpe said, speaking from San Jose, Calif.

The first report of the ban came at a conference in The Hague where regulation of the ivory trade is high on the agenda of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare, the British-based wildlife group that negotiated the ban with eBay, said the announcement should send a signal to the 171-nation CITES to tighten the trade regime to further protect elephants from poaching.

The ban would apply only to international trade, and not to sales within a country's borders, Sharpe said. Laws on domestic ivory sales differ from country to country.

"The Internet is a huge challenge," said Claudia McMurray, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for environment issues, acknowledging that the United States has a big market for illegal ivory.

While applauding the decision, McMurray said: "You still have to identify the buyer and the seller, and ascertain whether it's elephant ivory and legal." The United States was prepared to prosecute illegal traders, but "in cyberspace you don't know who you are dealing with," she told The Associated Press. The U.S. government has worked closely with eBay in the past, and it has been "very good at understanding how they can ferret out illegal behavior."

In a statement, eBay said the ban was intended to give "confidence to those people who want to buy legitimate and legal ivory items."

Peter Prueschel, of the animal welfare group, said it was difficult to distinguish between domestic and international trades on eBay. "That's why we tell them that sooner or later they will have to ban ivory entirely," he said.

Prueschel said eBay in Germany, which displayed an average 400 ivory items a day on its site, banned all ivory sales in March 2006. Since then, traffic has plunged 98 percent.

Only ivory that predates the 1975 CITES treaty or ivory from national stocks which later received one-time exemptions can legally be traded across national borders.

Some items mistaken or mislabeled as ivory actually come from walrus or mammoth tusks _ increasingly available as the Russian and Alaskan tundra melt due to global warming.

In its study, the animal welfare group said it found 2,275 ivory pieces offered for sale on the Internet in seven countries during a randomly chosen week in February, and that 94 percent lacked any mention of certification and probably were illegal.

The report coincided with another study by Care for the Wild International that identified the United States as one of the world's leading markets for illegal ivory.

That report's author, Esmond Martin, said he found more than 23,000 items of ivory in a survey of 15 U.S. cities. In some cities, half the items were illegally imported, and bore the hallmarks of production in China.

He said increasingly the ivory trade was migrating from retail stores to the Internet, which is not regulated by federal or state law.

Article at the following link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/05/AR2007060501146.html

eBay to ban global ivory trade on its sites

Tue Jun 5, 2007 1:12PM EDT

Illegal ivory imports flourish in U.S.: report



Online auction site eBay will ban all international trade of elephant ivory on its sites, the company said on Tuesday in a move welcomed by an animal welfare group which found the bulk of the ivory was most likely illegal.

A spokeswoman for eBay said it was tightening its policy on ivory sales and that the ban on international trade in elephant ivory would come into effect by the end of June.

International Fund for Animal Welfare said it was the first online international trade ban of elephant ivory.

"IFAW believes that this is an important step forward, but that a total ban is ultimately needed, and we will continue to work with eBay and others to implement this," Peter Pueschel, IFAW head of the global program against wildlife trade, said in a statement.

The Fund said a survey carried out in February found that 94 percent of elephant ivory traded on eBay sites was potentially illegal and that eBay's policies varied from country to country and were often vague and not enforced.

International wildlife trade laws differ from country to country and are often complex but according to the IFAW, in general it is illegal to sell carved or uncarved ivory unless it is antique and accompanied by a proof of age certificate.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) imposed a ban on international ivory trade in 1989, practically ending trade but this has since revived.

eBay will implement clearer and stricter policies on a national level for in-country trade, the Fund said.

let's see what they will come up with to control it better. I am curious.

Could not listing as bone not be fraud?

I would be annoyed if I was a collector of bone items & I bought a bone ornament & found it was ivory!
In eBay rules, misrepresentation is not allowed!

Sorry may be wrong thread! Just a thought!
- Edited by kipper on 12.06.2007, 22:46 -

While I understand that the protection of endangered species is a noble endeavor sometimes people can go to far. Take, for example, the banning of mammoth ivory carvings on ebay.

The wooly mammoth has been extinct for nearly 20,000 years, their extinction now believed to have been caused by a meteor hitting the earth. A large cache of mammoth tusks were discovered in Siberia and sold to the Chinese for carving which provided jobs and sustenance to thousands of human families. These people, as well as honest dealers and their families, are the ones being hurt by eBay's ban, not the wooly mammoth. There are no national or international laws restricting the selling and/or shipping of mammoth. Mammoth ivory is distinctly different than elephant ivory in its color, shape and consistency.

In their ingenious manner Chinese carvers have utilized the discarded bones of camels and oxen, mammoth tusk, and hippo tooth to continue their centuries old tradition of carving, further providing jobs and sustenance to the human species.

Again, these people are hurt by your ban, not the endangered elephant. These bone products are distinctly different than elephant ivory in their color, shape and consistency. Keep in mind that mammoth ivory protects living elephants because mammoth is a desirable commodity with similar properties as modern elephant tusks and can legally fulfill the needs of the industry. To ban the sale of mammoth because some unscrupulous dealers may use it to launder the
sale of elephant ivory is unfair because it punishes the innocent. Increase the penalties for the sale of ivory and strictly enforce those laws and leave us law-abiding citizens alone.

I want to close by re-emphasizing three points: (1) that mammoth ivory has in many industries nearly replaced the use of elephant ivory, such as the guitar manufacturing process where ivory is needed, jewelry crafting, pool cues and cue balls, Chinese netsukes and traditional carvings. Just to name a few; (2) if the argument that mammoth and elephant can not be distinguished on a website, then certainly that philosophy should extend to the listing of name brand items and any item that can be counterfeited since one can not distinguish the the real from the fake. Ebay should ignore the seller's history and feedback and not extend trust to anyone for anything. Mammoth ivory unlike a counterfeit Louis Vuitton handbag is not illegal to sell and ebay faces no lawsuits from the fair trade and sale of items derived from mammoth ivory; and (3) some conservation groups believe that the discovery of the mammoth tusk quarries in recent years has been successful in lowering the demand for elephant tusk.

Mammoth ivory has become as desirable as elephant. Consider that in forming your opinions on this matter.