ivory

Grazing herd of African elephants, Kenya. The African elephant has been aggressively hunted for its ivory tusks and is now an endangered species.

Hard white substance of which the teeth and tusks of certain mammals are made. Among the most valuable are elephants' tusks, which are of unusual hardness and density. Ivory is used in carving and other decorative work, and is so valuable that poachers continue to illegally destroy the remaining wild elephant herds in Africa to obtain it.

Poaching for ivory has led to the decline of the African elephant population from 2 million to approximately 600,000, with the species virtually extinct in some countries. Trade in ivory was halted by Kenya in 1989, but Zimbabwe continued its policy of controlled culling to enable the elephant population to thrive and to release ivory for export. China and Hong Kong have refused to obey an international ban on ivory trading. In 1997, the 138 member nations of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) voted in Harare, amidst much controversy, to remove the ban on trade in ivory in Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe. These three countries would be allowed to sell a limited amount of ivory to Japan, and the money must be channelled into elephant conservation projects. Trade is scheduled to resume in 1999 and would only be allowed from the existing stockpiles of ivory.

Vegetable ivory is used for buttons, toys, and cheap ivory goods. It consists of the hard albumen of the seeds of a tropical palm (Phytelephas macrocarpa), and is imported from Colombia.