The UK will enact “one of the world’s toughest bans” on ivory sales in an attempt to save elephants, Environment Secretary Michael Gove said.
in a bid to reduce poaching, the sale of ivory of any age will be banned, with limited exceptions. Anyone found guilty of breaching the ban will face a maximum penalty of an unlimited fine or up to five years in jail.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
"The ban on ivory sales we will bring into law will reaffirm the UK's global leadership on this critical issue, demonstrating our belief that the abhorrent ivory trade should become a thing of the past."
Exemptions will be made for “rare and important items” that are at least 100 years old, items made before 1947 that contain less than 10% ivory and musical instruments with less than 20% ivory made before 1975, Sky News reports.
Gove’s announcement, which is yet to be signed into law, comes after a public consultation found 88% of the 70,000 responses backed a ban.
“The number of wild elephants has dropped by almost a third in the last decade alone and around 20,000 are still being slaughtered for their tusks each year,” says The Independent.
Matthew Hatchwell, director of conservation at the Zoological Society of London, called on other nations to follow the UK’s lead, saying “it is vital that countries take significant steps such as those outlined by the UK government today to close their markets and help make the trade in ivory a thing of the past.”
Here are five statistics about the ivory trade:
Infographic by www.statista.com for TheWeek.co.uk
-
Trump lambasts crime, but his administration is cutting gun violence preventionThe Explainer The DOJ has canceled at least $500 million in public safety grants
-
Florida erases rainbow crosswalk at Pulse nightclubSpeed Read The colorful crosswalk was outside the former LGBTQ nightclub where 49 people were killed in a 2016 shooting
-
New York court tosses Trump's $500M fraud fineSpeed Read A divided appeals court threw out a hefty penalty against President Trump for fraudulently inflating his wealth
-
Shell’s North Sea oil U-turn: ‘a first victory in a longer war’?Speed Read Controversy after oil giant pulls out of proposed Cambo project
-
Fires, floods and storms: America’s ‘permanent emergency’ has begunSpeed Read This summer of climate horror feels like the ‘first, vertiginous 15 minutes of a disaster movie’, says The New York Times
-
Hot air and empty rhetoric: is the UK acting too slowly on climate change?Speed Read ‘Every day, new evidence accumulates that humanity is on an unsustainable path’
-
Germany floods: what led to this ‘once-in-a-century’ disaster?Speed Read Nearly 200 people died in Germany and Belgium; hundreds are still unaccounted for
-
Penguin colony at risk as Somerset-sized iceberg bears down on British overseas territorySpeed Read Several species face starvation if the icy giant blocks access to feeding grounds
-
‘Full of hot air’: climate experts exposed as academia’s most frequent flyersSpeed Read Study results trigger calls for environmentalists to ‘look in the mirror’
-
Mystery of millions of migrating birds dropping dead from US skiesSpeed Read Some experts believe the West Coast wildfires may be to blame for ‘unprecedented’ mass bird deaths in New Mexico
-
Americans warned not to plant mystery seeds being sent to homes nationwide from ChinaSpeed Read Officials say the unsolicited packages have been mailed to residents in at least 27 US states
