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

Group 1 – Democratic Republic of the Congo (CD) and Thailand (TH): For the third consecutive time,
these two countries, both of which are elephant range States, fall in the same cluster with extremely
problematic variables. In terms of frequency and scale, this cluster ranks in the middle range, indicating
fairly regular involvement in the illicit trade in ivory. It should be noted, however, that the governments of
the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Thailand are not regularly submitting elephant product seizure
data to ETIS. To some degree, poor participation in ETIS serves to obscure the measures for frequency
and scale, and actual values are certainly higher than indicated. In terms of period of activity, these two
countries were more active in the recent period, 1998-2006, with two-thirds of the trade occurring during
these years. Effective law enforcement continues to be a very serious issue in both countries as noted by
the low CPI and law enforcement effort scores. These scores indicate a very high perception of corruption
and extremely lax law enforcement effort. Equally, the domestic ivory market score is the greatest of any
cluster, indicating a potent internal trade dynamic. For its part, Thailand clearly remains the
undisputed, largest ivory market in Southeast Asia, although the scale of the market appears to have
contracted to some extent in recent years. Regardless, over 23 000 ivory products in over 200 outlets and
an active, but declining, carving industry were observed in the most recent survey conducted in 2006/2007.
These findings indicate that legal loopholes in the country’s legislation continue to provide an open avenue
for fairly open trade in ivory products at the retail level and that law enforcement has been sporadic at
best. With one of the largest tourist industries in the world, the negative impact of Thailand’s ivory trade
on Africa’s elephants continues to be great. In summary, the same general description of these countries
characterized previous ETIS analyses in 2002 and 2004. Since then, little progress appears to have been
made in these countries in implementing Resolution Conf. 10.10 (Rev. CoP12) requirements for internal
trade in ivory or the CITES action plan pursuant to Decision 13.26.
The ETIS analysis to CoP14 goes on to conclude that:
Regrettably, it appears that the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Thailand, Cameroon and
Nigeria have done very little to mitigate their roles as major entrepôt suppliers, transit countries,
manufacturers and/or end-use markets in the illicit ivory trade. …Subjected to Decision 12.39 in
2002 and Decision 13.26 in 2004, these countries have been under notice to demonstrate
compliance with the requirements for internal trade in ivory found in Resolution Conf. 10.10 (Rev.
Cop12) for at least four and half years now. With this analysis, it is once again evident that the
situation in these countries remains a serious impediment to effective elephant conservation under
the Convention.
In view of the lack of progress, the final recommendation of the 2007 ETIS analysis is: “As four of the
countries most heavily implicated in illicit ivory trade, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
Nigeria and Thailand have shown little evidence of effective implementation of the provisions for internal
ivory trade in Resolution Conf. 10.10 (Rev. CoP12) since CoP12. These countries should be considered as
priorities with respect to the implementation of Decision 13.26.”
It is very clear that Thailand needs to seriously address a range of ivory trade issues and ensure that it is
able to demonstrate compliance with CITES requirements for the allowance of internal trade in ivory.
The elephant and ivory trade in Thailand
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