Save African Elephants...End the Bloody Ivory Trade

FROM Bloody Ivory Campaign - Born Free Foundation

Tell CITES to stop the bloody ivory trade and save African elephants from extinction!

CONTACT

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INFORMATION / TALKING POINTS

Elephants are being killed in their thousands for Bloody Ivory. It is all illegal ivory being smuggled out of Africa. Two countries are fuelling the crisis if their proposals to sell 110 tons of ivory are approved by the 175 countries of CITES, March 13-25, 2010.

What the Experts Say

It is very discouraging having to fight the battle to save elephants once again. The 1989 ban helped elephants to recover in most parts of Africa. Now even in Amboseli we're losing elephants to ivory poachers for the first time in many years. The sale of any ivory--legal or not--is creating demand. No one needs ivory. It is a beautiful substance, but the only ones who need it are elephants.
Cynthia Moss Amboseli Elephant Research Project

As long as ivory is valued as a commodity, every tusker is at risk from poachers, and only where anti-poaching efforts are sufficient will elephants survive. Anti-poaching costs money and lives. Banning the ivory trade has been the single-most effective and economical way to slow the loss of elephants across their whole range - not just where they can be protected by anti-poaching units.
Ian Redmond OBE Chief Consultant, GRASP - UNEP/UNESCO Great Ape Survival Partnership

Protecting elephants is an important part of fighting climate change. Why? Because every day across Africa and Asia, elephants disperse billions of seeds, some of which will grow into the forests of tomorrow, sequestering and storing carbon, generating rainfall and stabilising our climate. Save the elephants to save the forests to save the world!!
Ian Redmond OBE Chief Consultant, GRASP - UNEP/UNESCO Great Ape Survival Partnership

As an attorney and author who has been deeply involved in issues pertaining to elephant welfare for 10 years, I am categorically opposed to resumption of ivory trade because all evidence points to such trade fueling the human appetite for ivory and the consequent, indiscriminate slaughter of these Appendix I protected animals.
Lisa Kane JD

“The extinction of the African elephant is underway. The question we are asking the decision-makers in Europe is: ‘Do they want to see this happen?'”
Perez Olindo Government of South Sudan

“A single word can send out the wrong signal for those in the illegal trade, that they can start killing as quickly as possible.”
Perez Olindo Government of South Sudan

Poaching is reducing continent-wide elephant populations by more than 8% annually, although some countries are being hit much harder than others. This level of off-take is unsustainable and will have serious ecological consequences given the keystone role elephants serve in African ecosystems.
Samuel K. Wasser, Ph.D Director, Center for Conservation Biology, University of Washington

Elephants are living treasures. Nature's gardeners. Nature's great teachers. Tragically some people don't give a damn. They prefer the dead treasure to the living one. The ivory. We must challenge this so-called 'trade' with all our might and shame on those who would condone it.
Virginia McKenna OBE Founder & Trustee Born Free Foundation

Thank you for everything you do for animals!