Conservationists fear a rise in the ice-ivory trade poses a new threat to elephants and the environment
Danny Graham
In 2018, a UK-wide ban on the sale of ivory came into force. However, a new study by the University of Portsmouth warns that the sale of mammoth tusks, known as ‘ice ivory’, is an unregulated aspect of the trade that still needs addressing. Mammoths fall outside the limits of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the global agreement to protect animals and plants.
“There’s evidence traders are trying to sustain the illegal ivory market with mammoth tusks, by intentionally mislabelling ice ivory as elephant ivory,” says Caroline Cox, lead researcher at the University of Portsmouth’s Ivory Project. Conservationists are concerned that this mislabelling of mammoth ivory may result in an increase in the laundering of illicit elephant ivory.
According to Luke Hauser, co-investigator on the study, mammoth and elephant tusks are almost identical, which makes it difficult to police the ivory market: “The first mammoths appeared in Africa around five million years ago, and radiated into at least ten species; all originating from the same family of modern elephants, known as Elephantidae.”
Climate change means that permafrost is melting faster than ever before and, as a result, more mammoths are being uncovered, particular
