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Tracing Ivory to Its Source
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# : |
19795 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
3 / 1991 |
2,866 Words |
| Author
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Nikolaas J. van der Merwe
Nikilaas J. van der Merwe is Landon T. Clay Professor of
Scientific Archaeology at Harvard University. |
In recent years, increases in the worldwide trade in ivory have resulted in illegal killing of elephants for their tusks and serious depletion of elephant populations in many parts of Africa. International efforts to control the ivory trade have been unsuccessful, and the killing continues. One problem is that some countries have a surplus of elephants in their wildlife parks and thus have "legal ivory" to sell, while others have dwindling elephant populations. Poachers and dealers in the letter countries devise ways to market their, "illegal ivory" as part of the legal ivory trade.
Recently, however, researchers have developed a scientific method that makes it possible to tell exactly where an elephant tusk comes from. It is based on the isotopic ratios of carbon, nitrogen, and strontium in ivory. This method can be used to eliminate the illegal trade in ivory and thus to save the elephant populations in those parts of Africa where they are threatened.
The ivory trade is more than two thousand years old. The earliest written records about the East African coast describe the exchange of African ivory for metals and glass beads from Arabia and the East. This centuries-long trade did not endanger the elephant species. In the last twenty years, however, the ivory trade has gotten completely out of hand, and the elephant populations of East and Central Africa are rapidly declining. There are several reasons for this crisis. Overpopulation in Africa lies at the root of it, resulting in destruction of elephant habitats. The explosive increase in the ivory trade, however, is due to increased demand, African poverty, human greed, and corrupt governments.
Several years ago, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) instituted a system to control the ivory trade. It was based on a quota system under which African countries could legally sell their surplus ivory, and which required that each tusk be numbered and certificated by CITES for export. This international agreement was supported by most countries of the world, although a few culprits did not sign the treaty. The system was very easy to circumvent with the connivance of corrupt government officials. Once a tusk had been given a number and certificate for export, that number could be endlessly repeated on tusks from elephants that had been illegally killed.
It is also easy, of course, to forge shipping documents. Much of the ivory arriving in Japan, for example, had shipping documents that made it appear that the material came from southern Africa
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