Global ivory market prices since the 1989 CITES ban☆
Introduction
The wildlife trade involves the sale or exchange of wild animals or plants and their derivatives, such as skins, tourist curios, or food products. It is estimated that this global trade is worth up to $350 billion annually, with illegal transactions accounting for approximately $20 billion (TRAFFIC, n.d.; Wyler and Sheikh, 2008; Petrossian et al., 2016; UNODC, 2016). Data on illegal trafficking seizures indicate that the wildlife trade is unevenly distributed across taxa; mammals account for 51% of all wildlife seizures, with ivory being a significant subcategory, making up 25% of mammalian seizures by number (TRAFFIC, n.d.; Petrossian et al., 2016).
By 1976, the ivory trade had pushed elephants to the brink of extinction. Plunging African elephant (Loxodonta africana) populations drew international attention, at which point concerns about their long-term survival led to their listing by the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). By 1989, the African elephant had made its way onto CITES Appendix I, which criminalized all international trade and left individual nations responsible for the regulation of domestic trade activity (Lemieux and Clarke, 2009). In 1999 and 2008, however, several elephant range countries had elephants down listed to Appendix II due to increasing populations, and legally auctioned government-stockpiled ivory to designated Asian trading partners. These two events are known as the “one-off ivory sales” (USFWS, 2013). Up until 2016, China and the US, the two largest ivory markets, still had legal components to the trade. In 2016, however, both countries agreed to shut down markets by the end of 2017. The following analysis assesses market data from 1989 to this 2017 shutdown, which will likely mark a new era for the ivory trade and African elephants.
Almost 600,000 kg of illegal ivory has been seized since 1991 (CITES Secretariat, 2016a, CITES Secretariat, 2016b). Primarily the product of elephant poaching, these seizures represent the death of approximately 50,000 elephants per year, highlighting the grave effects of the trade on remaining African elephant populations, currently estimated at just over 350,000 (Chase et al., 2016).
As is the case for any commodity, the ivory trade (and therefore elephant poaching activity) is driven by demand (Milner-Gulland and Leader-Williams, 1992; Knapp, 2012; Holden and McDonald-Madden, 2017; Holden et al., 2018). Higher ivory market prices lead to higher poaching incentives, and therefore greater numbers of elephants being killed. Previous researchers have studied ivory price at multiple levels ranging from local markets to national scale, but the majority of studies suffer from data deficiency or employ a purely qualitative approach.
One of the first analyses examining trends in ivory market price was performed by Wittemyer et al. (2014). The authors collated price information from markets in Samburu, Kenya and demonstrated that observed spikes in ivory price circa 2008 were correlated with increased elephant poaching and ivory seizure rates. This study, although limited to Samburu, was amongst the first to link ivory prices to elephant poaching and illegal seizures (Wittemyer et al., 2014).
Gao and Clark performed a similar analysis in 2014, focusing specifically on price trends in China. The researchers visited Chinese ivory markets to gather information on ivory price, type, and weight, amongst other variables. Through their analysis, Gao and Clark established that illegal ivory prices increased dramatically in the years leading up to 2013, and that illegal raw ivory was approximately ten times more expensive in China than in Africa (Gao and Clark, 2014).
Gao and Clark's (2014) conclusions about increasing prices were supported by ’t Sas-Rolfes et al. (2014), who observed significant ivory price increases from 2000 to 2014 in both Africa and East Asia. The researchers noted increases in elephant poaching and ivory seizures around 2008, which supported the findings of Wittemyer et al. (2014).
In 2015, Stiles, Rowan, and Moyle published a study drawing connections between the previously noted price increases and both the one-off ivory sale of 2008 as well as the Global Financial Crisis of 2007/2008. Their analysis also explored relationships between ivory prices and elephant poaching, ivory shipping costs, and macroeconomic indicators such as LIBOR and gold price (Stiles et al., 2015).
The only quantitative approach to analyzing ivory markets was published by Milner-Gulland in 1993. In this paper, Milner-Gulland developed an econometric model to describe consumer demand for ivory and rhino horn in Japan, which was found to be primarily income-driven. This analysis, however, is relatively out of date and limited solely to Japanese markets (Milner-Gulland, 1993).
Each of these publications highlights the multidimensional nature of the ivory trade by integrating variables such as the estimated number of elephant poaching events, global ivory seizure volumes, the type, weight, and legality of ivory, and various macroeconomic indicators. To the best of our knowledge, however, there have been no attempts to integrate these variables with market price data in a systematic manner. There is also a lack of studies exploring market prices both temporally and geographically. The aim of this study, therefore, was to examine a large dataset of ivory market prices, together with information such as ivory product type (raw, polished, carved), weight, region, and legality. Alongside the Transaction Index (TI) (which estimates the number of transactions in a given year) and world gold price, this data will be used to (1) examine the temporal and geographic trends in market price since the 1989 CITES ban, (2) determine factors significantly linked to ivory price, and (3) propose a predictive equation for price based on these factors.
By exposing trends in market price since the 1989 CITES ban and identifying its determinants, it is hoped that better policy decisions can be made with regards to regulation, education, and conservation efforts. This could, for example, be more stringent trade regulation in regions where ivory price, and therefore likely demand, is highest. Ideally, this would lead to decreased poaching incentives and a more secure future for elephants.
Section snippets
Data collection
Market data was obtained from two sources. The UK-based non-profit ‘Stop Ivory’ facilitated the provision of pricing data collected between 1999 and 2004. This dataset contained 320 individual transactions from ivory markets visited across Africa, Europe, as well as South, Southeast, and East Asia. Some historical samples in this dataset stretched back to 1874. This novel unpublished data was collected using the methods described in Martin and Stiles's previous publications (Martin and Stiles,
Temporal and geographic analysis
A LOESS fitted curve was applied to the overall ivory market price data (Fig. 1). The data suggested an initial slow decrease in LnPrice followed by a steep increase after approximately the year 2000. The precise point of inflection is hard to discern, as the LOESS fitted line will be overly influenced by the weight of data from 1999, for which price samples were heavily clustered from Africa. The year 2007 was selected as a break point due to historic, recorded market changes, discussed below.
Summary of findings
The price model developed explains approximately 72.5% of the variation in the ivory price (LnPrice) since the CITES ban. Determinants significant to ivory market price included: (1) region; (2) type; (3) Transaction Index; and (4) legality. Interaction effects were present between region and legality, and between region and type. There was a strong positive linear relationship between Transaction Index (which estimates the number of ivory transactions each year and takes into account both the
Conclusion
Ivory price data included in this analysis starts in 1989, the time of the CITES ban and reach 2017. Globally, our analysis indicates that prices have been increasing since this ban. Researchers disagree, however, on the effect of the ban on elephant poaching. Some argue that it has reduced or reversed the decline in elephant populations by making international trade illegal and by increasing criminal risks for those partaking (Khanna and Harford, 1996; Lemieux and Clarke, 2009). Others argue
Funding
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
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Article impact statement: Four variables, including legality, region, type, and transaction index, affect ivory prices, which have been increasing since 1989.
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