What's big and grey and has a long nose?
Any guesses? No, no, no, not that, would I insult your intelligence by not posing a trick question?
Hint: It doesn't really have a long nose (apart from allegedly providing room for those that are inclined to develop one a la Pinocchio, but that is, quite literally, a stretch).
No, it is the area in which the current wildlife laws and CITES regulations allow us to register our elephants in order to earn the moniker 'Captive Bred'. In fact, that's not quite true, the CITES regulation (10.16 rev.) is very clear, for an elephant to be defined as captive bred (C) both her parents must be classified at least F1 - i.e. have been bred in captivity in a controlled manner. What is unsaid is all four of the grandparent parents, presumably, could have been wild caught - something that makes sense as, given the life span and reproductive tendencies of an elephant we would have to be going back 24 years at the very minimum for those four grandparent elephants, to have been caught - yes, it would have been illegal to have caught them in 1985 but if we were to suggest that grandparents and then parents were 30 years old when they bred we are well back into the times when wild capture was not only legal but commonplace.
Even in 1985, however, the world was a very different place, Thailand was a very, very different place, the laws for elephant registration are as old as the hills and, indeed, take into account that Thailand - particularly those bits in which elephants hang out - is a particularly hilly (or swampy if we talk of Surin) place.
Once a baby is born you have eight years to register it, by which time it will have been separated from it's mother for five years and, as with wild elephants, the father has but one job, usually accomplished with relish and gusto, and he's out of the picture - one act of penetration performed nearly 10 years before the latest legal registration date of his calf, following which he may not have been seen again. So, on a village scale, we have the mahout's and perhaps the village elder's word that the elephant came from two specific parent elephants (who may no longer be in the area) - scientifically this isn't of much use as, outside the big logging companies, formal records were not taken and the registration system has no legal requirement to mention the parents of an elephant and place of breeding (i.e. to confirm it was a controlled environment).
I think I have mentioned this before, when we began registering our elephants with an international database, the collator automatically recorded them as wild caught (turns out a lot of people outside Thailand seem to think that we just pop into the jungle and grab an ele every time we need one - partially, one suspects, because of this grey area in scientific designation and near impossibility of registering any of our elephants as Captive Bred under the CITES definition.) but what got me reading deeper was a recently published report by the international agency Traffic entitled The Elephant and Ivory Trade in Thailand which appears to be a well researched (except some data is out of date - number of domestic elephant camps stemming from 2002, price of baby elephants must be from about the same time) document focusing mainly on the ivory trade but obviously spending time at the border and making use of the research from an earlier study focusing on Myanmar that we have previously discussed.
Interestingly the first study (and I consider both of them valid) resulted in vibrant headlines in the popular press identifying Myanmar as the centre of the illegal trade in wildlife in South East Asia, whereas this study, some of the same journals and journalists now identify Thailand as the centre of that trade with headlines such as Thai Corruption, Loopholes, & Adventure Travel Enable Illegal Ivory Trade - lucky Burma to be off the hook so quickly. The reality of the situation is, of course, that it is a cross border trade (at least for live eles) and that until both countries live up to their obligations under CITES (Thailand signed in 1983, Myanmar in 1997) then the trade will continue - though, as I have said before, the trade is older than the effective enforcement of the borders so the elephant keepers living on both sides of the border can be understood when they fail to see what the fuss is about.
That Adventure Travel either deliberately (though I would be tempted to place that burden on the less adventurous tourism ventures) or unwittingly (through my old favourite soap box subject of the 'smuggle to Bangkok to sell to well meaning 'rescue' operations' trade) drives the trade in live elephants is something that it is not beyond imagination, I do find it slightly unfair to blame us for the trade in ivory though: I don't think any camp I've ever visited sells ivory (at least openly and to the public) - if anyone has seen it for sale in a camp I would like to know, Traffic's under cover folks may know more.
In fairness to Thailand the report made several recommendations and those that can be practically and easily followed have been; leading to some high profile ivory seizures, increased training of border post officials and customs folks etc. I think it is also fair to say that the tourist industry is aware of the problems and, as ever, change can be market driven; as tourists I highly recommend that you ask the camp you choose to travel to (or ask your agent to ask) how they source their elephants and what they do to safeguard against using illegally smuggled, wild caught, elephants.
Other recommendations such as the legal registration and microchipping of baby elephants at birth (or let's say within three months) and a national computer database have not yet been implemented but are worth campaigning for as it is very difficult to see any legal arguments for not doing this given Thailand's excellent infrastructure and communications system - let us hope for a change in the law in the near future.
________________________________
Hint: It doesn't really have a long nose (apart from allegedly providing room for those that are inclined to develop one a la Pinocchio, but that is, quite literally, a stretch).
No, it is the area in which the current wildlife laws and CITES regulations allow us to register our elephants in order to earn the moniker 'Captive Bred'. In fact, that's not quite true, the CITES regulation (10.16 rev.) is very clear, for an elephant to be defined as captive bred (C) both her parents must be classified at least F1 - i.e. have been bred in captivity in a controlled manner. What is unsaid is all four of the grandparent parents, presumably, could have been wild caught - something that makes sense as, given the life span and reproductive tendencies of an elephant we would have to be going back 24 years at the very minimum for those four grandparent elephants, to have been caught - yes, it would have been illegal to have caught them in 1985 but if we were to suggest that grandparents and then parents were 30 years old when they bred we are well back into the times when wild capture was not only legal but commonplace.
Even in 1985, however, the world was a very different place, Thailand was a very, very different place, the laws for elephant registration are as old as the hills and, indeed, take into account that Thailand - particularly those bits in which elephants hang out - is a particularly hilly (or swampy if we talk of Surin) place.
Once a baby is born you have eight years to register it, by which time it will have been separated from it's mother for five years and, as with wild elephants, the father has but one job, usually accomplished with relish and gusto, and he's out of the picture - one act of penetration performed nearly 10 years before the latest legal registration date of his calf, following which he may not have been seen again. So, on a village scale, we have the mahout's and perhaps the village elder's word that the elephant came from two specific parent elephants (who may no longer be in the area) - scientifically this isn't of much use as, outside the big logging companies, formal records were not taken and the registration system has no legal requirement to mention the parents of an elephant and place of breeding (i.e. to confirm it was a controlled environment).
I think I have mentioned this before, when we began registering our elephants with an international database, the collator automatically recorded them as wild caught (turns out a lot of people outside Thailand seem to think that we just pop into the jungle and grab an ele every time we need one - partially, one suspects, because of this grey area in scientific designation and near impossibility of registering any of our elephants as Captive Bred under the CITES definition.) but what got me reading deeper was a recently published report by the international agency Traffic entitled The Elephant and Ivory Trade in Thailand which appears to be a well researched (except some data is out of date - number of domestic elephant camps stemming from 2002, price of baby elephants must be from about the same time) document focusing mainly on the ivory trade but obviously spending time at the border and making use of the research from an earlier study focusing on Myanmar that we have previously discussed.
Interestingly the first study (and I consider both of them valid) resulted in vibrant headlines in the popular press identifying Myanmar as the centre of the illegal trade in wildlife in South East Asia, whereas this study, some of the same journals and journalists now identify Thailand as the centre of that trade with headlines such as Thai Corruption, Loopholes, & Adventure Travel Enable Illegal Ivory Trade - lucky Burma to be off the hook so quickly. The reality of the situation is, of course, that it is a cross border trade (at least for live eles) and that until both countries live up to their obligations under CITES (Thailand signed in 1983, Myanmar in 1997) then the trade will continue - though, as I have said before, the trade is older than the effective enforcement of the borders so the elephant keepers living on both sides of the border can be understood when they fail to see what the fuss is about.
That Adventure Travel either deliberately (though I would be tempted to place that burden on the less adventurous tourism ventures) or unwittingly (through my old favourite soap box subject of the 'smuggle to Bangkok to sell to well meaning 'rescue' operations' trade) drives the trade in live elephants is something that it is not beyond imagination, I do find it slightly unfair to blame us for the trade in ivory though: I don't think any camp I've ever visited sells ivory (at least openly and to the public) - if anyone has seen it for sale in a camp I would like to know, Traffic's under cover folks may know more.
In fairness to Thailand the report made several recommendations and those that can be practically and easily followed have been; leading to some high profile ivory seizures, increased training of border post officials and customs folks etc. I think it is also fair to say that the tourist industry is aware of the problems and, as ever, change can be market driven; as tourists I highly recommend that you ask the camp you choose to travel to (or ask your agent to ask) how they source their elephants and what they do to safeguard against using illegally smuggled, wild caught, elephants.
Other recommendations such as the legal registration and microchipping of baby elephants at birth (or let's say within three months) and a national computer database have not yet been implemented but are worth campaigning for as it is very difficult to see any legal arguments for not doing this given Thailand's excellent infrastructure and communications system - let us hope for a change in the law in the near future.
________________________________
Thailand steps up efforts to tackle illegal ivory tradeTRAFFIC press releaseSeptember 24, 2009
Bangkok, Thailand, 24 September—A recent high-profile ivory seizure, a review of national legislation, and the initiation of training courses for both government staff and ivory traders are indications of the commitment being shown by the Thai Government to tackle the illegal ivory trade, according to TRAFFIC.
The seizure, by the Royal Thai Customs Department, took place during the third week of August at the Suvarnabhumi International Airport, when, according to the Thailand CITES Management Authority, 316 pieces of raw ivory weighing 812.5 kg illegally imported from Qatar were confiscated.
In order to help track the domestic ivory trade in Thailand, in August last year the Government introduced legislation requiring ivory traders to maintain and updated inventory their stock and to have this available for review by authorities as required.
The Government is also beginning a review of the Wildlife Animal Reservation and Protection Act (WARPA 1992). The Act contains a loophole that allows illegal trade to flourish in the country.
The flaw in the legislation was highlighted in TRAFFIC’s recent report, The elephant and ivory trade in Thailand (PDF, 800 K
which also detailed the results of market surveys for ivory carried out in 2006 and 2007: http://www.traffic.org/species-reports/traffic_species_mammals50.pdf
“The government of Thailand is clearly demonstrating its commitment to addressing the illegal trade in ivory, although there is a long way to go before satisfactory measures are in place,” says Chris RShepherd, Acting Director of TRAFFIC Southeast Asia.
Recently the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP) initiated a series of training courses to raise awareness among its staff about Thailand’s obligations under existing national legislation and under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) to control and manage ivory trade.
Thailand became a Party to CITES in 1983.
The first course was organized in Nakorn Sawan Province, and to help ensure buy-in from the private
sector, ivory traders were invited to participate. TRAFFIC was invited to run a session on the identification of ivory for DNP staff.
“It was very encouraging to see the enthusiasm of the participants, and to see that more than 80% of the ivory and substitute ivory products used to test DNP staff were identified correctly,” says Shepherd.
The second course in Sara Buri Province was a three day event aimed at raising awareness among enforcement agencies about Thailand’s obligations under CITES and the importance of developing an effective coordination mechanism to report ivory seizures. A session was also included to help enforcement officers distinguish between real and fake ivory (usually bone and plastic resins) and between elephant (CITES listed) and mammoth ivory (non CITES listed).
TRAFFIC, in collaboration with the CITES Secretariat, has developed the Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS), a database that collates information on all ivory seizures reported worldwide.
Analysis of ETIS records helps in the assessment of how elephant range States are fulfilling theircommitment under the Convention, and has consistently identified Thailand as one of the top five countries implicated in the illegal trade of ivory.
Among countries in the region, Thailand plays the most significant role in the illegal trade in ivory and other elephant products, with trade in live elephants also a serious issue.
Although the trade in ivory and elephant products is not a new phenomenon—in Thailand, records go back as far the Sukhothai period (1238-1376 A.D.) — Asian Elephants are declining across their range,
with the illegal trade in ivory a major contributing factor.
TRAFFIC has offered to provide technical support to help Thailand fulfill its obligations under CITES, ETIS and in the enforcement of strengthened national legislation.
Thailand is one of the 175 Parties expected to attend the next full meeting of CITES, which takes place next March in Qatar where concern about the trade in ivory and other elephant products will once again feature on the agenda.
“The seizure by Thai Customs of more than 800 kg of ivory illegally imported from Qatar last month could hardly be of greater significance for Thailand to signal its international commitment to implementing the treaty fully,” says Shepherd.
Posted by John Roberts at Sat, 10 Oct 2009 08:02:00 GMT 
Categories: Thailand Elephants, General Conservation, Regional Elephants
Tags: The elephant and ivory trade in Thailand traffic smuggling captive breeding wild capture
Categories: Thailand Elephants, General Conservation, Regional Elephants
Tags: The elephant and ivory trade in Thailand traffic smuggling captive breeding wild capture
This was displayed right next to the bananas for sale. I asked a mahout if it was real and he proudly answered that it was.
Reply to this
Hi Karin
Thanks for this.
If this was carved from domestic elephants owned by the camp (or bought by the carver) then this is legal - and so you can understand the pride given that the stall holder probably has no idea of the controversy this action holds, nor, unfortunately, do many of his customers.
However, it is exactly the grey area that the report talks about, save for lengthy and expensive DNA testing no-one can proove where this ivory came from so there is nothing to stop him, should he become sold out, from sourcing ivory from elsewhere, some of which may well have come in from Africa - though I would tend to think that would drive the prices up, home cut ivory like this can be seen as a free bi-product of owning elephants and mahouts tend to have a lot of time so this would be a 100% profit business for him.
Apart from possibly driving the trade in poached ivory my other argument against this 'harvesting' (tusks will grow about an inch a year) is that often people get greedy and cut too close (or through) the nerve causing years of pain and infection to the elephant - our own Boun Liang being a case in point - or even steal ivory from other people's elephants, while there is a market there will be those who abuse; be it on a small scale or through large scale poaching and smuggling.
Incidentally, had you bought a piece from here it would have been legal, taking it out of Thailand (or into Sweden) would have been illegal under CITES - so beware (not you, but others reading this).
Thanks
John
Reply to this