BEIJING: China has denied allegations of ivory smuggling but MPs accused China of its ivory trade policy and attributed elephant poaching to “China’s demand”.
Such allegations are misleading and contrary to the facts.
The Chinese government attaches great importance to protecting elephants, and China has worked closely with the international community to resolutely fight the illegal ivory trade. It has intensified efforts to fight ivory smuggling and dealt with a large number of cases in recent years.
The illegal ivory trade cannot be stopped by one or two countries alone. It requires the whole world to come on board, taking concrete steps to enhance law-enforcement and monitoring, educate the public and combine prevention and control measures.
China shoulders the dual responsibility of protecting elephants as a natural heritage and carrying forward the intangible cultural heritage of ivory carving. Legal ivory processing in China is to preserve traditional ivory carving arts and crafts. The processing scale is limited with the toughest regulatory and monitoring measures applied. To blame elephant poaching solely on China’s legal ivory imports is unfair. It will mislead the global efforts to protect the elephants and will do no good to the cause of elephant protection.
