Friday 19 November 2004

The operation, spearheaded by the Metropolitan police in collaboration with the Gloucester and Avon and Somerset constabularies, has furthered efforts to crack down in the illegal ivory trade.

In all, 142 elephant ivory items were seized with a value of £60,000, including a substantial amount of un-worked and partially worked ivory (estimated at 80kg), as well as 32 carved ivory items and fourteen shaving bowls with tortoiseshell inlay, with an estimated street value of £25,000. HM Customs and Excise CITES Team, based at Heathrow and TRAFFIC also assisted the Police with the search warrants. Enquiries are continuing.

Andy Fisher, Head of the Metropolitan Police Wildlife Crime Unit, said: "This co-ordinated operation shows the commitment of the police to tackle the illegal trade in endangered species. This is an important area of crime which will continue to prosper as long as consumers in the UK buy endangered species products."

After a long campaign by WWF and TRAFFIC, new powers and penalties were approved by parliament in November 2003 under the Criminal Justice Act to increase the maximum prison sentence for wildlife trafficking from 2 to 5 years and to give the police the power of arrest for such crimes. But this new legislation cannot be used as the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) have failed to issue new regulations.

The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee has recently called on Defra to act without further delay to bring the new law into force.

Callum Rankine, International Species Officer for WWF-UK, said: "Without these new powers it will be the police that are handcuffed and unable to act, rather than the criminals. The Government must act now to stop the illegal wildlife trade, before more endangered species are killed for UK markets."

The illegal trade in wildlife is estimated by Interpol to be worth many billions of dollars annually, and is believed to be second only to the illegal trade in drugs. London has long been a hub for wildlife traffickers. It is feared this latest seizure represents the tip of the iceberg for this illicit trade operating in the UK.

The continuing existence of ivory markets, particularly in Africa and Asia, remains one of the greatest threats to elephants today. Poaching for ivory is seriously threatening elephant populations in many African countries. Fifty years ago there were up to 3 million elephants roaming the continent, today environmentalists believe that there may be less than half a million.

The plight of Asian elephants is even more precarious. Poaching for ivory, combined with massive habitat loss, may have left as few as 35,000 in the wild. Because only the male Asian elephants have tusks, ivory poaching has caused populations to skew strongly towards females and tuskless males. Not all males have tusks, possibly reflecting the intensity of past ivory hunting. In some parts of India, females already outnumber adult males by more than 100 to one. Such populations will not be able to breed fast enough to survive in the long term.

Crawford Allan from TRAFFIC International said: "The illegal trade in ivory is a continuing problem world-wide. If an elephant is poached for its ivory, chances are great that the ivory will end up in a market in Africa or Asia. From there, trade can spill over into other end use markets in North America and Europe, including the UK. While the scale of the domestic ivory market in the UK can be considered small when compared with countries in Asia and Africa, this operation clearly indicates the commitment of the authorities in dealing with the serious threat of wildlife crime in the UK."