Amid growing calls for an outright ban, the European Union has come under increasing pressure to help protect African elephants by ending the trade of ivory within its borders.
An EU-wide ban on ivory trade is essential if the global trend to close down markets is to succeed in protecting elephants from poachers, argue Mark Jones and Joanna Swabe.
Almost three-quarters of all ivory sold legally in Europe is in fact illicit and comes from tusks of elephants that were killed after the 1990 ban on ivory trade, according to an investigation released on Tuesday (10 July).
China and the UK have joined the US in closing their domestic ivory markets. It is now time for the EU to follow their footsteps if we are to give Africa’s elephants a fighting chance to survive the current onslaught from global criminal syndicates increasingly involved in the poaching and distribution of ivory, argues Catherine Novelli.
The European Commission has proposed a ban on eel fishing in the Atlantic, in an attempt to recover the dwindling stock of the European eel, a critically endangered species that is traded illegally by an industry that is worth millions of euros.