Dutch to ban raw ivory sales from 2019

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Europe

The Netherlands said on Monday it will ban all raw ivory sales from next year, as it unveiled the results of a major operation to combat trafficking of endangered animals and plants.

Ivory products. /VCG Photo

Currently, Dutch law permits the sale of raw ivory such as elephant tusks with an EU certificate, provided it entered the country between 1947 and 1990.

"From March 1, 2019... the sale of raw ivory from and in the Netherlands will no longer be possible," said Carola Schouten, Dutch agriculture and nature affairs minister, in a letter to the parliament.

"This measure comes because with raw ivory it's very hard to tell the old from the new," Schouten added.

The old rule came into force shortly after international trade in ivory was banned in 1989 by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the global conference that governs wildlife trade.

Ivory imported into the country before 1947 needed no such certificate, said the NOS public broadcaster.

"But recently acquired ivory is often aged, for instance by using tea leaves and sold on (Dutch online classified advertising site) Marktplaats," it added.

By banning all sales of raw ivory, "We are undercutting illegal practices," said Schouten.

The minister also unveiled the results of a two-month operation by police, customs, and food watchdog officials aimed at intercepting endangered species brought into the country illegally.

"Operation Toucan" from September to November saw officials seize thousands of cacti from Panama and Peru without proper import papers as well as a range of exotic animals.

This included six boa constrictors, sent by mail from the U.S., a penciled marmoset and a capuchin monkey which were kept as pets and two dead toucans sent from Uruguay, the minister said.

Dutch police and inspectors also confiscated seven kilograms of ivory at a collectors' fair in the central city of Utrecht.

CITES said last year elephant poaching was declining in Africa but that seizures of illegal ivory were hitting record highs.

Elephant ivories. /VCG Photo

In 2016 some 40 tonnes of illegal ivory were seized, the most since 1989, as well as the highest number of "large-scale ivory seizures," the group said.

Source(s): AFP