Voices
Trumpet an end to ivory trade
By Earle Gale (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-02-25 11:45
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I was surprised when I went with my girlfriend to one of Beijing's famed antique streets for a nose-around.
Among the treasure trove of stores selling Buddha statues, calligraphy, Chairman Mao posters and countless old-looking items was a boutique crammed full of the most beautiful, intricately carved ivory I've ever seen.
It was also chockablock with the most hideous, horribly carved ivory I've ever seen, because - you've guessed it - I had never before laid eyes on a store crammed full of ivory anythings.
In fact, until that moment, I thought stores selling ivory were more rare than a three-legged dodo that survived the sinking of the Titanic.
I hurried inside, convinced that the "hand-carved ivory" figurines must have been - like the plethora of items gleaming in the Aladdin's caves everywhere else along that famed street - beautiful forgeries.
The owner insisted they were not, of course - as do all the shopkeepers on that street - but I thought he was simply being economical with the truth.
Now, I'm not so sure.
After reading a story in METRO before Spring Festival, I now know that Beijing is dripping with more exquisitely carved elephant tusks than you can shake an African mahogany stick at, and that animal-rights activists are pushing hard to get China to turn its back on the trade.
The story told us that Beijingers were snapping up ivory products to give as gifts for Spring Festival, just as they have for 7,000 years. It said this thirst was, in part, because of the elephant's misfortune in being seen as auspicious, courtesy of the fact that the character xiang sounds similar to the xiang in jixiang, which means lucky fortune.
The elephant's name is no doubt not the only reason why people crave ivory - there is no denying it looks and feels beautiful and it is true, too, that such rare and expensive items will always be attractive to people who like to accumulate things working stiffs can never possess.
It's no mystery that some people want ivory, I just thought, rather naively, that, as with heroin and bear paws, the trade was illegal and carried out under the table.
Not so, the story told us. China imported 61 tons of ivory in 2008, with the full blessing of the international community, so far above the table that it was in danger of brushing the chandelier.
More than half of the 61 tons was processed and sold in Beijing.
And China is not alone. Japan also continues to legally import ivory from African nations that say they have too many elephants.
I must admit my knee-jerk reaction to learning that, in the 21st century, we still legally shoot these beautiful creatures and hack off their tusks was one of massive disappointment.
I agree the wonderful skills handed down from generation to generation of brilliant carvers should be preserved and cherished, but I just wish people would cherish them in cow bone or some modern hard plastic.
I realize supporters of the ivory trade will point out that mankind kills and processes thousands of different types of creatures; why protect the elephant and not, say, the goat?
They will say it must be about more than the fact that elephants are cute.
Well, it is.
Environmentalists point out that, over the past 20 years, the number of elephants in Africa has more than halved from more than a million to a measly 470,000.
Let's ban this ugly trade before we drive elephants to extinction.
And if a ban is impossible, let's compromise. Let's allow the ivory trade to continue but only with tusks harvested from elephants that have died of natural causes after living out their lives in captive breeding programs right here on the mainland.
If we harvest our ivory this way, the ancient skills of the carvers will be preserved and so will the wild elephants. And just imagine the tourists who would pay good money to visit the farm.
