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Review


Protection of elephants and sustainable use of ivory in Thailand API NYA CHAITAE ,I AIN J. GORDON,J ANE ADDISO N and HELEN E MARSH


Abstract The Asian elephant Elephas maximus is of cultural significance for the Thai people. The development of legal protection for elephants in Thailand dates back to the 17th century, reflecting concerns about both human livelihoods and elephant conservation. The legal status of privately owned, captive elephants differs from that of wild indivi- duals, with consequences for the lawful use of ivory from captive animals. Prior to 2015, the lack of comprehensive measures to control the Thai ivory market enabled the laun- dering of illegally sourced ivory in the country. The Thai government introduced legal reforms in 2015, imposing strict controls over the possession and domestic trade of ivory from captive Asian elephants, and aligning the pro- tection of African elephants and their ivory with CITES regulations. Nonetheless, the sustainable use of Thai ivory remains disputed, and international pressure to close the commercial trade in domestic ivory persists. Herewe review this complex situation, aiming to inform future reforms. Consolidation of laws related to elephants and ivory would facilitate law enforcement and compliance. Use of an electronic database would improve the monitoring of ivory movements and aid the implementation and enforce- ment of laws.


Keywords CITES, elephant, Elephas maximus, enforce- ment, ivory, livelihoods, sustainable use, Thailand


Supplementary material for this article is available at doi.org/10.1017/S0030605321000077


Introduction


1916; Ibn Muḥammad Ibrāhīm, 1972; Feinberg & Johnson, 1982; Fine Arts Department, 2013). Although Asian ele- phant ivory is less valuable than African ivory (St. Clair & Mclachlan, 1989), it is still highly valued and has been a source of income in Thailand for hundreds of years. Records can be traced back to the 14th and 15th centuries, with trade involving merchants from India, China, and Arabian and European countries (Ibn Muḥammad Ibrāhīm, 1972; Pallegoix, 2000; Fine Arts Department, 2013). During the 17th–19th centuries ivory was used to make musical instrument parts, art objects and high-value decorative items (Kunz, 1916; Johnson, 1978; Feinberg & Johnson, 1982; Walker, 2009). Carved products, made from imported raw ivory, were exported to Western and South-east Asian coun- tries during 1800–1850 (Fine Arts Department, 2013). After WorldWar II, the predominant global destinations for ivory products shifted from Europe to Asia (Lindsay, 1986). Ivory markets in China and Thailand expanded significantly in the late 1980s and 1990s, coinciding with the development of regional economies and tourism in Asia (Stiles, 2004, 2009). This significant global growth in demand for ivory led to


I


APINYA CHAITAE* (Corresponding author, JANE ADDISON ( (


orcid.org/0000-0003-0086-2500), orcid.org/0000-0002-8912-6253) and HELENE MARSH orcid.org/0000-0003-3492-4992) College of Science and Engineering,


James Cook University, 1 James Cook Drive, Townsville, QLD 4811, Australia E-mail apinya.chaitae@my.jcu.edu.au


IAIN J. GORDON†‡§( orcid.org/0000-0001-9704-0946) Fenner School of Environment andSociety,TheAustralianNationalUniversity,Canberra,Australia


*Also at: Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, Bangkok, Thailand †Also at: CSIRO Land and Water, Townsville, Australia ‡Also at: Central Queensland University, Townsville, Australia §Also at: James Hutton Institute, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK


Received 30 June 2020. Revision requested 16 September 2020. Accepted 15 January 2021. First published online 14 September 2021.


increased killing and consequently population declines of African elephants (Wittemyer et al., 2014), and in 1989 the African elephant was uplisted from CITES Appendix II to Appendix I (CoP7 Prop.26, 1989; Sukumar, 2003). All Asian and most African elephants are currently listed in CITES Appendix I, and international commercial trade in their ivory is therefore banned (CITES, 1973, 2019a). Trade in ivory from African elephants listed in CITES Appendix II (populations from South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe) is permitted under strict conditions (CITES, 2019a). Penalties for non-compliance with CITES regula- tions are harsh, and offending states face sanctions in the form of suspension of all international trade of any CITES-listed animal and plant species (CITES, 1973). Thailand had high levels of illegal ivory trade during


2009–2011, largely because it lacked effective legal provi- sions to control trade in ivory sourced from the country’s captive elephants or to criminalize illegally sourced ivory from Africa (CoP16 Doc. 53.2.2 (Rev. 1), 2013). As a result, CITES recommended sanctioning Thailand by 31 March


This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Oryx, 2022, 56(4), 601–608 © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605321000077


vory from African Loxodonta spp. and Asian elephants Elephas maximus has been traded for centuries (Kunz,


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