The elephant and ivory trade in Thailand (PDF, 800 KB) - Traffic

Table 5. (continued)
Seizures of illegal ivory in Thailand, 1992-2003
Date No. of Pieces Weight kg
April 2000 112 496
January 2001 2
November 2001 30 203
March 2002 396
May 2002 60 195
May 2002 56 194
August 2002 56 160
August 2002 121 362
July 2003 65 501
Total 24 088 4 000
Sources: Mather, undated; Martin and Stiles, 2002
In addition, 91 tusks, weighing 213 kg, were seized at Entebbe International Airport in Uganda in June
2001 bound for Thailand (Anon., 2007c). The 24 000+ items and four tonnes of ivory seized were a
mixture of raw and worked ivory. Although Thailand has an active ivory carving industry, worked ivory
of Chinese origin is commonly sold in shops, and pieces from Myanmar, Lao PDR and Cambodia also
enter the country illegally (Martin and Stiles, 2002; Shepherd, 2002; Shepherd and Nijman, 2008). Raw
ivory usually enters Thailand from Myanmar at the border crossing of Tachilek-Mae Sai in the north
(Shepherd, 2002; Shepherd and Nijman, 2008). It is notable that in 2002 after WWF-Thailand, in
collaboration with other stakeholders, provided training to several hundred Royal Thai Customs officers,
that several large ivory seizures were made (Mather, undated). Table 5 does not include eight additional
ivory seizures made in 2004 reported to ETIS, because the ETIS report does not provide numbers or
weights (Milliken et al., 2007). Most recently, in March 2008, two boxes containing ivory destined for
Bangkok were seized in Ethiopia. The ivory was shipped by air from Malawi (Chipofya, 2008).
In general, the seized raw ivory originates from Africa while the worked ivory is sourced from mainland
China or Hong Kong, though most of the raw ivory used in the Chinese carving industry is African in
origin (O’Connell-Rodwell and Parry-Jones, 2002; Martin and Stiles, 2003).
The ETIS report to the CITES CoP14 contained a detailed analysis of the ivory seizures reported to it by
Party governments (Milliken et al., 2007). The report noted that between 1989 and 2007 Thailand declared
only 55 ivory seizures, a record thought to be incomplete. In addition, Thailand has not provided any
information to ETIS for 2005, 2006 and 2007 for the CoP15 report (ETIS, in litt., to TRAFFIC, 2008).
Thai government officials have stated orally to TRAFFIC that this was because no seizures had been made.
The ETIS report observed that Thailand remains one of the key countries in both unregulated domestic
ivory markets and in illegal ivory imports and stated that most of the ivory originated in Africa (see
Appendix 1).
Tusks from Thai poached elephants also enter the market. Between 1992 and 1997 at least 24 male
elephants were killed for their tusks (Srikrachang and Jaisomkom, 1999). Two sites now exist in Thailand
The elephant and ivory trade in Thailand
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