Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Dubai: The next time a special intricate carving or statue catches your eye in a local curio shop, think before you buy.
If the piece is made of ivory, you may be in for more than you bargained given that not only is shipping raw ivory illegal, buying and possessing newly worked ivory works is also against the law in countries such as the UAE, says Dr Elsayed Ahmad Mohammad, Director, Middle East and North Africa for the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
Except for antique ivory that can be proved that it was harvested and sold before the 1990 ban, new items made from ivory are illegal, he told Gulf News on Wednesday.
“Worked ivory is totally illegal under Cites (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora),” he said. “It is for sale in Egypt and North Africa but you do not see this legally sold in the Gulf. Here in the UAE they have enough inspectors to check so it is controlled.”
Mohammad said many buyers may not even think of the consequences of purchasing an ivory carving or piece of jewellery, noting that owning or buying such pieces is in effect agreeing with the slaughter of elephants whose discarded bodies are left to rot in the African wild.
“If you see worked ivory for sale, call the municipality and have them remove them,” Mohammad said.
The prevalence of ivory in some foreign countries around the world has more to do with the hundreds of millions of dollars made throughout the supply chain than with the aesthetics of simple carving that captures the eye.
It’s about money, and lots of it to be earned by underworld figures along the death routes tusks follow to the Far East.
“Raw ivory in African is cheap but once it reaches China, for example, the price is ten times higher,” he said. “When the ivory is worked, the price goes even higher. Worked ivory prices depend on the work, art and the artist who carves them,” he said.
Figures released by IFAW suggest that prices in the 1990s of $100 (Dh367) per kilogram of raw ivory in the Far East reached as high as $1,322 per kilo in 2011.
By Derek Baldwin Chief Reporter
Gulf News 2013. All rights reserved.
