China’s Blood Ivory Bazaar. ***warning:disturbing photo****

[Theowl32]

China?s Blood Ivory Bazaar - The Daily Beast

Beijing claims to oppose the illicit traffic in the tusks of elephants butchered by poachers. In fact, it’s created a booming market.
HONG KONG, China — The meeting took place in a private room in a Shenzhen restaurant. Within a navy blue duffel bag were clattering bone-hued beads, amulets, and bracelets.

He placed a disk in my hand, with a hole drilled near its rim and a red tassel dangling from it to assume the appearance of a lucky charm. It nearly covered the entirety of my palm and had a Chinese poem carved on one side, with a bull on the other. The cross-hatched Schreger pattern on its surface was unmistakably that of ivory. “That piece is ¥2,000 [$320],” he said. “Everything I sell is processed in my workshop. I hire skilled carvers, and we can handle bigger pieces too.” He removed the bubble wrap around a lump drawn from his bag and revealed a rotund Laughing Buddha, about 8 inches tall with a hard white belly rolling forth. “This one is ¥24,500 [nearly $4,000].” He was disappointed that I was not ready to bargain. For a moment, I measured the risk of carrying that sack in public. He traveled alone. What if he was mugged as he left our meeting?

“Most of it is from Ethiopia,” he said. On the screen of his smartphone, he swiped through pictures of elephants lying on the ground, lifeless, a mixture of red earth and redder blood caked onto their bodies, tusks freshly severed by chain saws and hoisted like trophies by grinning, sweaty, dusty poachers. The shots serve as proof of sourcing for his clients. Blood ivory is a big business in China.

Ivory purchases are officially discouraged by the Chinese government. Token efforts to spread the message include billboard ads in Chinese airports denouncing the ivory trade, and SMS messages sent to Chinese tourists by their embassies when they visit certain African countries advising them to not bring any ivory home. Yet objects made from elephant tusks are still considered symbols of wealth and status. Some even think of ivory purchases as investments, or an alternate way to park cash, and believe that the value of their acquisitions will balloon in time. The demand for ivory remains high among a select community.

China is the biggest market for the ivory trade, and as Internet commerce is becoming increasingly popular, ivory sales have spilled over to social media platforms. Web searches for “ivory sales” on Baidu—China’s most popular domestic Internet search engine—will only produce news reports as results. To temporarily dodge the censors, ivory traders have recently adopted terms like “XY,” “white plastic,” and “solar core” as code for ivory.

CCTV Africa, an offshoot of China’s state television broadcaster, reported that 6 tons of illegal ivory have been confiscated and destroyed by the Chinese government this year. In May, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang announced a $10 million pledge for wildlife conservation in Africa. These efforts were part of China’s soft power charm offensive, yet the continued growth in Chinese ivory sales tells a different story.

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What does this ivory trade cause?

 

[September]

But Ivory sculpture can be sooooo beautiful

 

[shart_attack]

China is also to blame for the aiding the extinction of this beautiful big cat:

South China tiger - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There is a lucrative black market in China for all sorts of products made from tigers — everything from their furs for rugs to their blood for alternative medicinal cures for all sorts of illnesses.

The Chinese are evil, eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil people, and I'm just thrilled we're so deeply in debt to them that we can never hope to get out of it alive.

In the meantime:

Save China's Tigers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Save China's Tigers | SAVE CHINA'S TIGERS

 

[RKMBrown]

The Chinese are no different than any other group of people. Some good, some bad, some a little of both.

Can't tell from a couple photos what happened, those elephants might even be asleep, the tusks collected from the ground. If they did kill process the entire animal then it's not much different than killing whales, no?

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Also horrifying is that rhinos are now being shot with tranquilizers and while unconscious, their horns are cut off their face with a chainsaw. They awaken only to die a very slow death because their faces have been sawed off. The poachers are doing it this way now because law enforcement can hear gun shots.

Its not just China who is guilty in this wholesale slaughter of wildlife.

 

[RKMBrown]

Should mankind should be forced to become vegetarians?

 

[shart_attack]

Should mankind should be forced to become vegetarians?

Might work in North America, yeah.

But have fun trying to impose that on the Hebrew and Islamic world.

Not. Gonna. Happen.

 

[waltky]

Wonder if the poachers were working for the Queen of Ivory?...

Four men killed by poachers in Congo's Garamba National Park
Oct. 10, 2015 - The four men leave behind four wives and 14 children among them.

Four men in the Democratic Republic of Congo are dead after anti-poaching forces clashed with elephant poachers in the nation's Garamba National Park. The men were killed earlier this week in a firefight that broke out after a ten-man patrol unit traced the tracking collar of a killed elephant to a poachers camp. Outnumbered by poachers, the patrol unit was forced to disperse and retreat, but not before four men were fatally shot. On Friday, African Parks, a conservation group that helps manage and protect Garamba, announced the names of the men killed in the skirmish.

More than 10,000 African elephants are killed by poachers every year. In 2012, more than 25,000 were poached.​

The fatalities included: Garamba rangers Anselme Kimbesa Muhindo, Andre Gada Migifuloyo and Djuma Adalu Uweko, and Colonel Jacques Sukamate Lusengo, a member of the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC) who was assisting the patrol team. The four men leave behind four wives and 14 children among them. Six members of the patrol unit were successfully rescued by an African Parks helicopter, which took fire from poachers as it picked up the fleeing rangers.

The helicopter was unable to return due to the damage suffered during the rescue mission, but another larger and heavily armed patrol unit retrieved the bodies of the four killed men the following day. The poachers had since relocated their camp. "Our sincere condolences go to the families of the four men who tragically lost their loved ones while they were bravely eliminating the scourge of elephant poaching from Garamba National Park," Peter Fearnhead, CEO African Parks, said in a press release. "This brings to eight the number of people who have lost their lives in Garamba in 2015 alone." Garamba is one of Africa's oldest national parks. It's known for its sizable (but shrinking) African elephant population, and was the last place to host wild northern white rhinos (a species now relegated to zoos). In 2014, poachers were reported to have killed 68 elephants in Garamba.

Four men by poachers in Congo's Garamba National Park

See also:

Police: 'Queen of Ivory' smuggled 706 elephant tusks
Oct. 10, 2015 -- A 66-year-old Chinese woman who has been dubbed the "Queen of Ivory" was arrested in Tanzania on suspicion of smuggling 706 elephant tusks worth an estimated $2.5 million.

Yang Feng Glan, an infamous smuggler with a network of operatives from Tanzania to China, is perhaps the most prolific ivory trafficker arrested in East Africa in a decade. Some of her suspected suppliers were also arrested. "Across Africa, they keep arresting small fish here and there," said Andrea Costa, a spokesman for the Elephant Action League, a nonprofit group that fights crime against wildlife. "They have finally caught a big fish."

Yang Feng Glan, dubbed the "Queen of Ivory," was arrested in Tanzania on suspicion of smuggling 706 elephant tusks worth an estimated $2.5 million.​

Officials said Yang used her ties between Tanzania and China to move ivory around the world. She moved to Africa in the 1970s as one of her country's first trained Swahili speakers. She later founded a company called Beijing Great Wall Investment and an eatery called Beijing Restaurant in Tanzania. Investigators said the restaurant was used as part of Yang's smuggling business.

Police: 'Queen of Ivory' smuggled 706 elephant tusks

 

[waltky]

105 tons of confiscated ivory to be burned in Kenya...

The world's largest ivory burn is happening in Kenya on Saturday
April 29,`16 - On Saturday, Kenyan wildlife officials will set more than 105 tons of elephant and rhino ivory on fire - a display intended to combat the growing threat of poaching.

The market for ivory across much of Asia, and particularly China, has remained strong in recent years, driving poachers in sub-Saharan Africa to kill an enormous number of vulnerable species. The ivory burn is intended as a condemnation of that booming market. By some measures, the ivory being incinerated in Nairobi would be worth more than $150 million. "From a Kenyan perspective, we're not watching any money go up in smoke," Kenya Wildlife Service Director General Kitili Mbathi told CNN. "The only value of the ivory is tusks on a live elephant."

Between 2010 and 2012, poachers killed more than 100,000 African elephants, according to research from a team led by George Wittemyer of Colorado State University. It is a level of destruction that put the species on the road to extinction. Kenyan wildlife officials say they hope the attention that the ivory burn is receiving will jolt potential consumers of ivory in China who might not understand the consequences their demand has had on the world's elephant population. "When Kenya burns $100 million worth of ivory, they’ll say, 'What the hell was that about?' It will help open their eyes to what is actually happening," Kenya's top wildlife service official, Richard Leakey, told Scientific American.

A traditionally dressed Maasai tribesman holds an elephant tusk, part of an estimated 105 tons of confiscated ivory to be set ablaze, at Nairobi National Park in Kenya​

Across sub-Saharan Africa, conservationists have adopted increasingly modern anti-poaching efforts — surveillance drones, teams of armed guards, GPS-enabled elephant collars that send a signal when an animal is immobile, a sign that it might be in trouble. But one of the major reasons poaching continues, experts say, is that the poachers themselves are rarely held accountable. Only 10 percent of those arrested are prosecuted, according to the Nairobi-based nonprofit group WildlifeDirect. Many of the court proceedings are fraught with corruption and suspects are often able to pay their way out of custody.

In Kenya, where tourism makes up more than 10 percent of GDP, largely because of visitors who come to see the country's wildlife, officials are trying to make an economic argument to protect the country's wildlife. Living elephants are a significant source of revenue, conservationists here point out. During a full life, an elephant generates 76 times more in tourism revenue than its ivory is worth in the Asian market, according to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, a Nairobi-based elephant rescue group.

The world’s largest ivory burn is happening in Kenya on Saturday

 

[bucs90]

Also horrifying is that rhinos are now being shot with tranquilizers and while unconscious, their horns are cut off their face with a chainsaw. They awaken only to die a very slow death because their faces have been sawed off. The poachers are doing it this way now because law enforcement can hear gun shots.

Its not just China who is guilty in this wholesale slaughter of wildlife.

The hunter in that photo deserves to be face raped and then slowly murdered with a screwdriver into the abdomen.

People who do that shit are absolute filth and I pray the most horrible painful death to them they can ever experience.

 

[waltky]

Tourists asked to fight wildlife trade...

Who is the 'Ivory Queen'?
Mon, 09 May 2016 | A 66-year-old bespectacled Chinese woman may not be most people's idea of an ivory smuggling kingpin, but that's exactly what Tanzanian investigators say Yang Fenglan is.

She is accused of leading one of Africa's biggest ivory smuggling rings, responsible for more than 700 elephant tusks worth $2.5m (£1.7m) illegally leaving Tanzania for the Far East. Ms Yang denies all charges and her trial is set to begin in Dar es Salaam on Monday. So what do we know about the woman dubbed the "Ivory Queen" and what exactly is she accused of?

Successful businesswoman

Originally from Beijing, Ms Yang first went to Tanzania in the 1970s. She was one of the first Chinese students to graduate in Swahili and worked as a translator for Tazara, the Tanzania-Zambia Railway project that China was helping to fund and build. According to China Daily, after the railway was completed in 1975 she returned to Beijing to work in the government's foreign trade department. It wasn't until 1998 that she decided to set up business in Tanzania. In fact, she set up two. She rented a two-storey building in downtown Dar-es-Salaam, opening a Chinese restaurant on the ground floor and establishing an investment company, Beijing Great Wall Investment, on the floor above.

The restaurant proved to be a success but in 2014 she told China Daily: "Now I do not count on the restaurant to make money. Instead, I see it as a place where people from China and Tanzania can communicate, get to know more friends and conduct information exchanges." She has spoken of her attachment to Tanzania, both physical and emotional. Her daughter is named Fei, the first character of the word for Africa in Mandarin. By 2012 she was secretary-general of the Tanzania China-Africa Business Council. "I know I should have retired, but whenever I think that my language advantage and network can help many Chinese and Tanzanians and increase mutual trust and confidence, I do not want to stop. I myself am the best illustration of China-Tanzania friendship," she said in 2014.

Car chase arrest

But at the same time, investigators say, Ms Yang was a major player in a far darker relationship developing between Tanzania and China - the illegal ivory trade. They say she was a key link between poachers in East Africa and buyers in China for more than a decade. Tanzania's National and Transnational Serious Crimes Investigation Unit tracked her for more than a year. She was arrested after a high-speed car chase in October 2015 and charged with ivory smuggling between 2000 and 2014. Poachers and ivory traffickers are threatening the very existence of elephants in Central and East Africa. Tanzania lost more than 60% of its elephants between 2009 and 2014. The role of Chinese buyers in this hardly comes as a surprise - demand for ivory in China is high because of its use in ornaments and even in holistic medicine.

'Untouchables'

See also:

Illegal wildlife trade campaign enlists tourists
Sat, 07 May 2016 - Conservationists have launched a global campaign asking the public to use a smartphone app to help tackle the illegal trade in wildlife.

Conservationists have launched a global campaign asking the public to help tackle the illegal trade in wildlife. They have developed a smartphone app that allows people to submit images and data of suspicious items on sale, possibly helping enforcement agencies. The United Nations estimates the illegal trade is worth billions of pounds each year. Despite efforts to crack down on the slaughter, it continues to grow, say campaigners. In recent years, there has been a resurgence in the poaching of threatened species, raising concern about the long-term survival of iconic animals such as tigers and rhinos. Growing demand for protected animal body parts and products on the Chinese black market is widely viewed as one of the main drivers for the growth in the trade.

A recent report by UK think-tank Chatham House said demand was rising at an "alarming rate". The authors said that activity in the illegal ivory trade had more than doubled since 2007, with ivory reaching a price of US $2,205 (£1,526) per kg in Beijing. Rhino horn was reaching mind-blowing prices of US $66,000 per kg - more than the price of gold or platinum. Crime prevention agencies recognise the threat posed by criminals targeting wildlife - listing the global trade alongside drugs, arms and human trafficking. The app - Wildlife Witness - was developed by Taronga Conservation Society Australia in partnership with Traffic, the wildlife trade monitoring network. Its focus was the South East Asia region, which has been identified has a hub in the global illegal wildlife trade.

In this expansion of the scheme, Chester Zoo will look to raise awareness of the project across Europe while San Diego Zoo will do the same in the US. "The reason why it is important for zoos to get involved is because we have access to really large audiences, and zoos have an important role to try and get these messages out," said Scott Wilson, head of field programmes at Chester Zoo. "Rather than us just saying 'Look at this, isn't it terrible?' this campaign allows people to download the app and actually be involved and take action." Mr Wilson told BBC News how people could submit data: "If people are travelling or are on holiday and if they see something as they are walking through the markets and they see something - say a baby sun bear that should not be there, or ivory on sale that they suspect is illegal, they can record it with this app and the data goes straight to Traffic. "This will really boost the amount of information that is coming through to them, and this helps them to identify trends in wildlife trade and - more importantly - they can use that data to try to influence the enforcement policies and the really big changes that need to take place."

However, Mr Wilson was quick to point out that people should not take unnecessary risks. He urged: "We do not want people putting themselves at risk and we certainly do not want them confronting people in a marketplace. If they can take a picture, great, if not then just put the data in the app afterwards." Chris Shepherd, South-East Asia regional director of Traffic, said there had been an "unparalleled spike in illegal wildlife trade". He observed: "Sadly, animals are being illegally killed or taken from the wild around the world to be sold for traditional medicines, luxury food, horns or other parts, restaurant dishes, fashion items or pets." Dr Shepherd explained how people could help using the app: "We want people to be the eyes and ears in the fight against the illegal wildlife trade."

Illegal wildlife trade campaign enlists tourists - BBC News

 

[Rustic]

Bleeding hearts... Lol

 

[bucs90]

The best thing we could...and SHOULD...do to fight these poachers is redirect our private warfare contracting services like Blackwater. Made up of former military and swat members....send hundreds of snipers into those areas. Kill the poachers. But make them suffer. Groin and lower torso shots. Let the Lions finish em off.

Few people on this planet disgust me as much as poachers. Liberal, journalists and Lawyers don't even match my hatred for those people.

 

[waltky]

Vietnam fightin' the illegal ivory trade...

Vietnam destroys 2.2 tonnes of seized ivory and rhino horns
Sunday 13th November, 2016 - Vietnamese authorities have destroyed more than two tonnes of seized elephant ivory and rhino horns ahead of a key international conference on wildlife trafficking.

The 2,200kg (nearly 5,000lbs) of seized material - estimated to be worth more than seven million dollars (£5.5 million) on the black market - came from some 330 African elephants and 23 rhinos which were slaughtered by poachers. The animals were killed to meet the demand for ivory, which is used to make jewellery and home decorations, and rhino horns, which some people mistakenly believe can cure cancer. The horns were crushed and then burned on the outskirts of Hanoi, with Vietnam joining 20 other nations in destroying seized wildlife products. An international conference on the illegal wildlife trade will be held next week in Hanoi, Vietnam's capital. It will be attended by officials and experts including the Duke of Cambridge, a vocal critic of the trafficking. Vietnam is one of the world's major transit points and consumers of trafficked ivory and rhino horns.

According to the head of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species in Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites), the destruction of ivory and horns ensures that no-one can profit from the contraband and sends a message that "Vietnam is not prepared to tolerate this illegal trade, and that illegal traders now face significant risks along the entire supply chain - in source, transit and destination states". Cites secretary-general John Scanlon said that the age and origin of the contraband can now be identified through forensics, making prosecution and conviction more likely. He said: "As a result of global collective efforts ... trading in illegal ivory and rhino horn is shifting from low risk, high profit to high risk."

Confiscated elephant ivory tusks are placed in a container before they are destroyed in Hanoi​

Ha Cong Tuan, Vietnam's vice minister of agriculture and rural development, said at the event: "By organising today's destruction, Vietnam would like to affirm once again that the Vietnamese government is highly determined in implementing laws, international conventions and fighting law violations. "It is also a message to those who are thinking of using or trading wildlife products for profit that they must stop; otherwise, they will be severely punished." The African elephant is facing an unprecedented poaching and trafficking threat. From 2010 to 2012, an estimated 100,000 elephants were killed illegally to meet the global demand for ivory, according to Humane Society International, an international animal protection group.

Over the past decade, poachers killed more than 6,000 rhinos across Africa. In South Africa, 13 rhinos were poached in 2007, but there has been a dramatic increase in poaching since then, and more than 1,300 were poached in 2015 alone, the group said. "This is just one of many steps that Vietnam has taken over the last three years to combat wildlife poaching," said Teresa Telecky, the Humane Society International's director. "We are very hopeful that this event will drive the message home to the public that they should not consume rhino horns, they should not consume ivory and get behind the Vietnamese government in trying to stop this."

In the past two months, authorities in Vietnam have seized four tonnes of ivory smuggled in five shipments from Africa. The destruction on Saturday included 2,183kg (4,800lbs) of ivory and 70kg (154lbs) of rhino horns. Vietnam has banned poaching of its own dwindling elephant population, while the Javan rhino was declared extinct in the country in 2011.

Vietnam destroys 2.2 tonnes of seized ivory and rhino horns - BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

 

[miketx]

Why hasn't Trump done something?