New York Governor Andrew Cuomo finally inked into law on Tuesday to ban the illegal trade of elephant ivory and rhinoceros horns in its state, a major step that came right on time for the Third Annual World Elephant Day on Aug. 12.
Recall that in June, both New Jersey and New York passed the legislation to such illegal trade. It was New Jersey that came first with the signing into law, followed by New York.
“Today, on World Elephant Day, New York’s governor signed their bill into law. We hope others will follow,” the World Elephant Day website said [pdf] in a statement.
The law has a few exceptions, though. Among which are antiques of at least 100 years old and contain only a little amount of ivory.
Based on reports, John Calvelli, who is the executive vice president for public affairs at Wildlife Conservation Society, revealed incoming state bans will also follow in Florida, Connecticut, California and Illinois, where large ports and populations are estimated.
Meanwhile, Dr. Liz Bennet of said society wrote a peer-reviewed essay in the Conservation Biology journal that was published on Aug. 7, calling for a total ban on elephant ivory trade and an eradication of all ivory stocks.
“If we are to conserve remaining wild populations, we must close all markets,” stated Dr. Bennet.
According to data from the Wildlife Conservation Society published online, wildlife trafficking and illegal poaching is the fourth biggest transnational crime, with the trade of ivory, also called as “the white gold of jihad,” funding military activities of notorious terrorist factions.
Other than that, poaching of elephants for their tusks brings about an ecological threat. For more than 12 years now, elephant population in African forest plunged by 65 percent.
The so-called heyday for such ivory tusk trade is in the 80s. Nine years after, world leaders recognized the crisis and made a move to ban the illegal commercial trade. For a time, it became effective in preventing the killings of elephants, but not for long. There were also attempts thereafter to minimize the ban. In 2012 alone, poachers killed around 35,000 elephants in Africa just to get their tusks.
A CITES June 2014 report revealed that 20 percent of elephants in Africa may be butchered in the 10 years to come if poaching persists at the levels we have currently. Meanwhile, others think these African elephants may come to extinction by 2025. Even closer to extinction are Asian elephants which numbers went down by 90 percent in the past hundred years.
This is why the Wildlife Conservation Society launched the 96 Elephants campaign, to raise awareness on such butchery among elephants. It was named after the average number of elephants killed every day in Africa. The campaign gathers 160 partners from governments, NGOs and citizens who have come together to advocate the welfare of elephants.
