Hong Kong's delayed ivory ban endangers African elephants

Front Ecol Environ doi:10.1002/fee.1921 © The Ecological Society of America phants killed after the 1989 ban (Government of Hong Kong 2017a; Master 2018), demonstrating the poor regulation of Hong Kong’s ivory market. Although China’s nationwide ban has already been implemented, the delay in introducing similar regulation in Hong Kong allows continued unsustainable trade in ivory (Figure 1b), much of it illegal and mostly destined for China (Martin and Vigne 2015). Under the Protection of Endangered Species of Animals and Plants Ordinance (Cap 586) in Hong Kong, trade in elephant ivory is regulated by the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD). Ivory traders must obtain a “License to Possess” in order to possess ivory for commercial purposes; these licenses are normally valid for a period of 5 years. As of February 2017, there were around 380 active licenses in Hong Kong (AFCD 2017). In December 2016, when the Hong Kong Government announced a plan to phaseout trade in elephant ivory, all Licenses to Possess issued for elephant ivory afterwards would expire on or before 30 December 2021, giving traders a 5year grace period to sell the remainder of their ivory. With the passing of the Hong Kong Ivory Ban Bill in January 2018, the countdown to a full closure of Hong Kong’s domestic ivory market has begun. This deferral might be a blessing for traders, but could be a curse for the species already threatened with extinction; the postponement also seems superfluous given that no legally traded ivory could have been brought into Hong have fallen, hundreds of metric tons of elephant ivory have been shipped to Asia. Genetic tests of 28 major (>500 kg) ivory shipments confiscated during the past two decades confirmed that this ivory originated from African elephants (Wasser et al. 2015). Furthermore, radiocarbon dating of 14 major shipments intercepted between 2002 and 2014 reveals that ~90% of the ivory was derived from elephants killed within 3 years of the seizure (Cerling et al. 2016). Therefore, much of the ivory exported from Africa was obtained by recent poaching, in direct violation of the global proscription on its international trade subsequent to the inclusion of African elephants on CITES Appendix I in 1989. Hong Kong is a global hub for wildlife trade (Andersson and Gibson 2018) and plays a major role in the import of ivory from Africa (Figure 1b). Of the legal trade monitored by CITES since 1975, 71% of African elephant ivory has passed through Hong Kong (UNEP–WCMC 2017). As party to CITES, it is illegal for Hong Kong to import ivory derived from elephants killed after the 1989 ban, but since 1996, Hong Kong authorities have intercepted at least 37 metric tons of smuggled ivory (Figure 2; WebTable 1). Five of the major ivory shipments examined by Wasser et al. (2015) and Cerling et al. (2016) were seized in Hong Kong. Additionally, a member of Hong Kong’s Endangered Species Advisory Committee, who sits as a representative of local ivory traders, was recently prosecuted for the illegal sale of ivory derived from eleHong Kong’s delayed ivory ban endangers African elephants