CHINESE AND IVORY

You've heard me fulminate before on the subject of the ivory trade.  There is such an amount of ivory poaching that pessimistic persons calculate the elephant will be extinct in ten years.  We cannot allow this to happen to such a wonderful and intelligent animal.

A great deal of the poached ivory ends up in China.  However, I understand that people in China are now beginning to appreciate the dangers to the elephant and are anxious that it will not become a thing of the past.  On the other hand, however, in China itself the elephant is under pressure from those who want the land it occupies.

I do not wish to scorn people who require land for their livelihodd or to maintain a decent standard of living, but the Chinese will need to work out some solution to the elephant problem soon.  Ivory goods are something of a status symbol in China and the time surely has come when they cease to be perceived as such.  This would be a beginning.