The Chinese government has promised to do more to eradicate the ivory trade, even bringing in a temporary ban, after receiving international pressure. However, because many companies already have large stockpiles and ivory carving has long been a tradition in China, it'll be some time before ivory disappears from the market.

Confiscated ivory products are displayed before they are destroyed in Beijing on May 29, 2015. Photo: CFP

In March this year, China's State Forestry Administration put its tightest restrictions ever on the ivory industry, temporarily banning the import of all ivory products.

China has long been in the spotlight when it comes to the ivory business, with the rapidly expanding middle class's demand for ivory contributing to the global trade, both legal and illegal.

As awareness increases of the need to protect wildlife and the destruction that ivory poaching wreaks on animal populations, there has been more and more pressure on the Chinese government to act.

Ivory ban

Previously, in order to protect African elephants, one of the species most affected by poaching, the State Forestry Administration released in 2015 year-long bans on importing ivory carvings made after the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) became effective, as well as banning ivory trophies.

President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama both promised to take steps to stop all ivory imports and exports to and from their countries, in addition to bringing an end to domestic ivory trades, during Xi's visit to the US in September last year.

In recent years, there has been more and more focus on the Chinese market for ivory and this has led to the government being put under a lot of pressure, said Zhou Fei, head of TRAFFIC China programme, a wildlife trade monitoring network under WWF.

"China is actively pushing the 'One Belt and One Road' initiative and has cooperation with many African countries … it's clear that the Chinese government doesn't want this cooperation to be disturbed by issues around ivory," Zhou said.

China joined CITES in 1980. At that time, Chinese ivory companies had around 80 tons of ivory in storage between them. After 20 years of consumption, in 2005 ivory carving and trading companies found they had little left to work with and started lobbying the government to help them get hold of ivory.

In 2008, CITES permitted China to take part in a legal ivory auction and 62 tons of ivory were bought. Right now there are 33 legal production enterprises, such as ivory carving firms, and there are 130 companies that sell ivory products.

But experts say the legal ivory trade or quotas that allows certain companies to obtain and sell set quantities of ivory products do not keep the trade small and under control, like many had hoped. Instead, they have driven black market sales skyward.

TRAFFIC has monitored black market ivory trade. It's difficult to know the exact size of the black market trade, but they say that it's easy to tell it's flourishing, especially as it moves online to WeChat or QQ groups.

An ivory industry expert who requested anonymity told the Southern Weekly in 2011 that 100 kilograms of ivory is only sufficient for two carvers to use for two years, and if one looks at how much raw material a factory has one can determine whether it's supplies are legal or illegal. In the three years after the 2008 purchase, the ivory industry should have eventually shrunk as supplies dwindled again. But instead it grew from nine production companies and 31 traders to more than 30 production companies and more than 130 sales companies.

During this time, the killing of African elephants continued unabated and political pressure to address the issue rose. Records show that in 1900, there were about 10 million elephants in Africa. By 1980 the number had decreased to 1.2 million. Now there are only 50,000.

Conflict of interest

"As an international organization, we see clearly that the ivory trade is a business," Zhou said.

Some enterprises, mostly State-owned, go to Africa to buy ivory, and they resell it when they're back in China. The huge profits on offer and the number of companies involved mean that the industry cannot simply be shut down overnight.

Since last year, the State Forestry Administration has organized investigations into ivory enterprises to see how much ivory they have in storage, how much they spent on it, what their stockpile is worth and to help them prepare for the ban, Zhou said. Right now, there's no confirmed timeline for when ivory will be totally eradicated from the Chinese market.

There are a few ways the government might handle the ivory stockpile. One is a ban on ivory with no compensation, similar to the ban that was enforced on tiger bones and rhinoceros horns. Another method would involve some kind of partial government compensation. Another option would involve the government purchasing companies' ivory stockpiles at the market rate.

But at least right now, the status isn't changing much.

When the Global Times reporter visited an ivory handicrafts and decorations store in Beijing Antique City near the south Third Ring Road, the shop is filled with ivory items on display. A meter-long tusk was sitting near the window and had ornate carvings all over it, from base to tip.

Inside the shop, there are all sorts of ivory products for sale ranging from small key-chains to wall and desk pieces. A sign that reads "only sold domestically" sits on the table. Business seems slow, there were only a few customers looking around the antique city, and none in the ivory shop.

Experts expect that shrinking the ivory trade will be a long process. Zhou expects that actions will gradually be taken to eradicate all ivory products on the market in 2017.

"The shops' ivory sales licenses are valid for two years, so the easiest way for the forestry administration to do this is to stop granting renewals, then most of the shops will be unable to sell ivory products by 2017," Zhou said.

Every time there's talk of an ivory ban, many people in the ivory carving and sales industry express their anger and concern.

Traditionally, ivory carving has been viewed as high art and collectors have always regarded such products highly throughout China's history.

In Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong Province, there's a famous "ivory street," with more than 100 years of history that is considered by some to be a must-see for tourists who visit the city.

In media reports, many ivory craftsmen said some in the industry fear this tradition will vanish, like many other Chinese handcrafts. Throughout Chinese history, ivory carvings were offered as gifts from other countries to Chinese emperors.

Some suggested switching to another material, but there are also some craftsmen who claim that nothing can replicate ivory. 

Attacking at the source

In 2014, TRAFFIC gathered more than 10 major online commerce companies such as Alibaba and Sina and got them to sign an agreement saying they would have zero tolerance for people selling ivory on their platforms. It's an important step, Zhou said, because many ivory products sold online were traded on these sites.

Another method is to attack China's ivory problem at the source, to stop the ivory trade at the grass-roots level.

TRAFFIC has been cooperating with antiques website Wenwan Tianxia for many years. The website is a volunteer-run online space set up for people to exchange information on antiques.

The site was established in 2005 and began to take off around 2010. At that time about 1 billion yuan of trades took place on the site annually. Many of these trades involved animal products, such as items made from elephant tusks or rhinoceros horns.

"Back then some foreign media reported on us," said Chi Wei, CEO of the website. "We were referred to as 'the largest wild animal product trading center in Asia.'"

Then TRAFFIC and related Chinese government bureaus started seeking out the director of Wenwan Tianxia to cooperate with the site.

At first, the administrators started deleting posts concerning animal products. But then website users started vehemently complaining, so the administrators started holding online and offline discussions in which they tried to persuade their users to abandon ivory. They released reports which highlighted other materials which they argued are more valuable and beautiful than ivory.

Chi believes the measures have had an effect. He has noticed that fewer people are selling ivory on the site or even discussing it generally.

"It used to be when I refreshed my WeChat moments, I saw all sorts of people posting about ivory products, but now I could hardly see any," he said.