The International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw) noted this by examining online sales and auction sites in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Germany.
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After China and the United States, the European Union put in place strict rules in early 2022 to reduce the ivory trade within the European bloc. But a little more than two years later, online traffic continues. It is time for Member States to monitor the application of these rules more closely, demands the NGO, so that Europe really stops contributing to the massacre of elephants in particular but also of walruses, narwhals, whales and dugongs.
Elephant tusks, carved statuettes… The sale of raw or worked ivory objects on the internet is normally highly regulated and subject to obtaining specific permits in Europe. But Ifaw noted many flaws.
“ We still identified 1,330 ivory items on 49 sites in just 23 days. If three-quarters of these advertisements referred to some form of legality, not even 10% of them provided proof that the item sold was indeed legally sold and there was a large proportion of advertisements which allowed sending to internationally, which is normally not possible or in very rare cases », Regrets Eugénie Pimont, responsible for cybercrime linked to wildlife within the NGO.
Trafficking therefore continues, denounces this association which calls on the European Union to make all these rules binding. For the moment their application depends on the goodwill of the Member States.
In the United Kingdom, legislation concerning elephant ivory, with strong financial sanctions, has borne fruit. “ In the UK, after the implementation, it was found that there were 66% fewer adverts offering ivory items. So here we can see that there is clearly a positive impact. »
The NGO reminds us that buying or selling ivory objects encourages the poaching of wild species, most of which are threatened.