tv Deadly Greed - The Ivory Trade Deutsche Welle July 14, 2020 8:15pm-9:01pm CEST
8:15 pm
top story at this hour celebrations for bastille day are underway in paris with a tribute to health care workers taking center stage in a scaled down the rate president emanuel of iran is expected to make in a crisp to the nation all tied in tears and damage to covering that. you're watching the news i'm christina blache the praise of your company my colleague playing call me at the desk about a call joining us you can't in the meantime visit our web site called by. god. beyond. the initial. stories that are 2. 100. more ever it takes. the running how to change the law but how come all the job made for
8:16 pm
minds. these gentle giants are some of the last of that kind elephants with tusks this lauch has become brand new a handful remain in africa they protected the not aside from punches his feet and so i shouldn't demand for a ride for a. shock to climb in africa's elephant populations is being compounded by human encroachment on their habitat projection site for people who need something to stop by centuries and. this report crisis the significance of ivory from prehistoric times to the present from the stone age can see. many to the savannahs of africa to china and to russia
8:17 pm
where the siberian permafrost contains tusks from an extinct species that could help save africa's elephants. the earliest known artifacts made from bully mammoth ivory run earth in the mountains of southwestern germany in 2017 the site of their excavation was added to the list of unesco world heritage sites under the designation caves an ice age out in the swabian new era. the perforated rock formed during a middle life era is griddled with extensive candidates out the early ancestors to
8:18 pm
cup residence here at the beginning of the paleolithic age some 40000 years ago the limestone caves of the whole of fells hardly unique archaeological treasures they date back to the time when homosapien set out to copy europe. because conrad has been conducting research here for decades he has the department of illy prehistory and quaternary ecology at the university of tubingen. hall of hall of els and other excavation site in our region have been incredibly well preserved off a lot of we've found bones and ivory and players and bone 2 wars there for 40000 years old but look almost as if they were carved yesterday water. apart from artifacts musical instruments and jewelry almost. she 1000 stone tools
8:19 pm
have been found here. this is nice sort of thing if i'm buying schnitzel i it's not like an ivory carving can be done quickly on the contrary it takes many hours life shifts it's different to a pencil drawing where there's room for error. here every line you see was deliberately car and if there's a navel people triangle the delicate fingers or slits all are intentional and by no means coincidental says absolutely this is of kind far out so far. to go to question it is similar widespread in europe around 30000 years ago but the one of those famous bismarck shoulda dated back to more than 40000 years ago. writing this isn't evidence the mammoths were hunted instead it's played out early ancestors harvested ivory from already dead animals. things haven't changed
8:20 pm
all too much today. sergei go around like this from russia he's the biggest importer of mammoth ivory in europe making him a modern day entrepreneur who source of income stems from primordial times unlike african ivory the cell of mammoth is totally legal. there's another new customs regulation that's just incredible. now the form also asks you to confirm the mammoth ivory is not cat fur or cat hair cuts. it takes time to cut through all the red tape. gets to if. it's late in the evening now and we are finally picking up a mammoth task here at the frankfurt airport cargo terminal. cargo which i know
8:21 pm
from for a few crafts will come in which of every night i have to open the crates here. 17 prehistoric tasks prepared for the south by his russian friend nikolai. i need a ban on commercial trade in african elephant ivory the business with this ice age substitute is blooming. he doesn't just. tasks in the back have all been completely restored stabilized under vacuum and then stabilized again in the pressure chamber. and then polished by hand fake to perfection and poorly at. the international trade in ivory was banned in 1909 then it's illegal to south african i think across national borders but little has changed every year around 30000 elephants are killed for ivory in africa
8:22 pm
poaching is a profitable business. on the black market i feel i fetches up to $500.00. daniel stiles is an american conservationist based in kenya he spent years researching the transfer signs and smuggling routes for illegal ivory 80 percent of all goods in africa i transported out of the land. the controls apache corruption is commonplace between 2007 and last year 28 team. it looks like there has been something like. 5000. 131778 kilograms of ivory going out of africa at $200.00 a kilo that's over a $1000000000.00. stahl says the assumption that banning i.v.
8:23 pm
sales will stop punching is based on until a simplistic western view point reaches an animal rights audiology he calls it unfair to an approach that threatens elephants move an illegal trade would. it is generally a western paradigm you might call it is that elephants have intrinsic value and because of that that they should not be used commercially the policies that emanate from that actually very much like neo colonial policies it's outsiders dictating to african africans how they're supposed to manage their elephants and other wildlife. and i pulled 2016 kenya burned 106 tons of confiscated elephant tusks and rhinoceros phones following a campaign funded by international donations it was the biggest ever stockpile of ivory critics say the campaign lined the pockets of the ruling allays and that
8:24 pm
destroying large quantities of such a rare commodity boosts its value encouraging more poaching i call it a waste of precious resources that you could use in illegal ivory trade that would take pressure off of elephants having to provide illegal ivory. sustainable solutions are needed to protect elephants in the wilderness they live in the all one way more. and more and. german businessman bill fried past has a reputation for getting things done he's a passionate conservationist but the approach he advocates is controversial but based in cape town he feels a strong connection to use a doctor at homeland africa minor past your my passion for the african wilderness it dates back to 1965 and my 1st photographic safari with some white hunting in the
8:25 pm
okavango delta. that's when it all started doctors here in the early 1990 s. he stumbled on a tract of land in the sun valley valley in southern symbolically. convinced that he and fellow an associate had recommended it to me he said you've always dreamt of building a big animal reserve someday when you say bring in 50. so we have polluted zimbabwe one morning and had a look and it was love at 1st sight like sango is the largest private reserve in symbolically it's partly funded from trophy hunting a controversial practice that he insists prevents poaching. as it's an income when we europeans sit in our conference rooms or in front of the t.v. sets and make ourselves out to be the great protectors rhino it's a nature conservation in africa but it's the same time for bit people down here to earn the money they can offer just to pursue those goals in their own way. it
8:26 pm
smacks of neocolonialism neocon and it's arrogant to those at the top think they can dictate what's good for nature conservation to those on the ground right invested in nashua. in a sense a gaggle around it is also in nature conservationist because it mammoth audrey's used instead of elephant i free then a few elephants have to die in africa to speak against each other and i have the documents that show the mammoth ivory was an order to enter germany and i am afraid to transport it within the european union europe usually on buffy just by being today we're heading to paris to a gallery slash interior design shop and if. the shop in the city center boasts an eclectic collection of expensive decorative objects the pristinely restored tasks of a woolly mammoth fit writing. before but the real profits from the trade in mammoth tasks don't come from luxury stalls. that will.
8:27 pm
be evened out to a classic trade fair in nuremberg centers around hunting shooting sports and security it's here that surrogate meets his key customers knife mike is i didn't cry vince who work with fossil ivory. i love working with artists and i'm fascinated by what they do. with mammoth ivory and the ways they use it. i also find it fascinating that this material still exists on earth today and that it is so old it will really value that dimension that they have ensured see. every piece of burma $53.00 is unique it's crafted into handles the hand forged knives made of damascus steel. most of the world's mammoth ivory comes from russia. moscow is the center of the international trade. so guy goes around the needs to refresh his supplies if on god
8:28 pm
we're on our way to see probably like oh he's one of the biggest mammoth ivory traders in russia if not the world and he surveyed. the store leads to his collection of prehistoric treasures to mammoth skeletons both complete and restored to perfection. hundreds of tusks a piled up on the floor and on the shelves. then market value is determined by the intactness their length and diameter and the state of the material so whether it's cracked and wet or dry the color of the bark is also important to do so is influenced by minerals such as blue ion or dissolved in the permafrost soil and deposited over the course of thousands of years in the enamel. under some very few days i mean to me it takes a combination of
8:29 pm
a whole lot of factors to achieve this blue color which is why blue mammoth bark is the most valuable on the market unmarked. the tasks are harvested from the permafrost in the most remote parts of siberia north of the arctic circle where climate change is playing out in dramatic ways temperatures have been rising fields . in the ice to fool this reveals the remains of woolly mammoths and releases their tusks opposed to bleach i found around river banks. to keep family and fish in the amid the constant movement of the permafrost as it expands and contracts with fluctuating temperatures the buried mammoth pieces and tasks are pushed along a path of least resistance and the path of least resistance is a river which is why you find so many mammoth parts at the river. and flows but that doesn't mean all the mammoths died there the story of it. when it comes to
8:30 pm
salvaging the treasures preserved in the tundra time is of the essence once the ice flows in the primeval tusks are exposed to air they quickly disintegrate into worthless fragments experts believe more than 100000000 mammoths could be still hidden in the permafrost if only a fraction of the tasks is preserved it could satisfy demand for ivory from china the world's biggest ivory consumer for years to come. in. a 2nd ivory warehouse is located some 40 kilometers outside moscow. the fragments of all shapes and sizes the stores here they might look worthless but they can be crafted into a precious commodity it takes an expert i to tell which pieces have potential nicholai one of russia's best ivory graves help select the viable fragments. of.
8:31 pm
the pieces assaulted by whites. the purchase price is around $300.00 per kilo. more you. the tusks true glory is still concealed beneath the tundra. but it only takes a few minutes work with an angle grinder and buff wheel to lay their potential bear the volume of the mammoth ivory market is hard to estimate it could be as much as 80 tons per he world wide each of surrogate the rounds ivory pieces is clearly identified by photographs catalogue numbers and corresponding certificates while imports into the european union are documented it's unclear how much mammoth ivory is secretly shipped into china from russia.
8:32 pm
frankfurt is the 1st airport in europe to employ sniffer dogs to the detection of illegal ivory custom dogs trainer dieter keller has been trying police animals for more than 20 years. by their borders as this dog is trained to sniff out your techniques besides if he doesn't find anything in the market we always let him find a suitcase that's been planted with material so he feels he's done a good job because. public relations director christine as trust is often shocked by what passengers bring back from their travels. this is where we keep confiscated evidence snake wine is a typical souvenir or chameleon wine. this was an empty and hairy armadillo thanks to. the exhibits in this chamber of horrors just the tip of
8:33 pm
a huge iceberg. here it's hard to believe but this is an ear of an african elephant. this tusk of a smaller specimen. washing and a femur of an african elephant conscience and the fact that in 2017 nearly 13 and a half 1000 violations of the endangered species act were registered in frankfurt on line are 3 objects frequently pass undetected through luck each screening or indeed x. ray machines are no match for german shepherd near listeners. there are no smuggled goods in this lot of luggage but she makes a b. line for a plant suitcase. why do you use of dogs trying to detect endangered species it international airports and seaports could help curb the illegal ivory trade significantly. so greg around it has no problem getting
8:34 pm
through customs his documents are all in a what are. you i'm ok. ok well you know there was. a portion of his shipment is destined for really caught my eye alias richie. richie only works with the finest material. he is a master of scrimshaw and ancient technique of working with ivory. innuit an 18th century while as with the foods to decorate bones and wild teeth with this method which in my is credited with reviving scrimshaw his popularity in europe just wasn't here to his folks in me to what i'm doing here is one of the oldest lines of work in the world if he had been me or when i'm working with this material
8:35 pm
i feel a magical connection to the mammoth that lives of tens of thousands of years ago thinking years for him if uses for suddenly free and i think that's not so on like how the hunters and sharman spelt back when they were engraving and carving pieces for their rituals yet when cheats. becomes top lows of mammoth ivory using the finest of needles and pricks similar to a tattoo it's worked it requires patience devotion and perseverance up to $700.00 surprised inside one square millimeter finally the engraving is died with ink c c off i often sit here at a microscope for 10. hours or longer staring at an enlargement of a couple of square centimeters react when i really become one with this haski my mind kind of melts into the whole structure of it's over it's lance it's all inside breaking the save. the endangered species act bans any use of african ivory
8:36 pm
mammoth ivory is the perfect substitute even in great it can be easily distinguished from african ivory through its characteristic passion of course reagan lines. to do it it must see it here that you see these cross-hatching you only get those and fossilized mammoth material moments. that means it can't be mistaken for elephant ivory 40000 years lie between richie myers work and stone age ivory figurines but the material used for both has maintained its appeal . to greed for ivory has driven africa's elephants into retreat. even the solve a valley in southern sudan point is void of elephants that have been forced to make by for a giant cattle farm. it's here on 600 square kilometers of learned that village parts lives his wild life trains coming
8:37 pm
over to the west from the hill we're standing on for the land runs about another 5 or 5 kilometers of a stream. and over to the east it continues on for 27 kilometers all the way over to the saab a river that some saw which is also still on the property and as i text. from the monte sort of hilly parts could sense this terrains potential he was eager to return it to its natural state he rolled up his sleeves found international investors and spent a significant amount of his own fortune on the project. wild animals are all with disappeared from the terrain when village pups took it over he consulted biologists hired david goosen an experienced park ranger and relocated a variety of animals from neighboring mozambique to his reserve he says his is
8:38 pm
a sustainable operation because it benefits local communities revenues from eco to resume in hunting finance as parts named his game reserve. he would also like to sell his stockpile of ivory harvested from elephants that died of natural causes and beliefs he should be allowed to sell it. became a fact with about 400000 animals elephants are not really an endangered species act of all the way to find the population decline from a 1000000 240-0000 elephants hard to bear. but you have to differentiate where it happened and why it happened it doesn't go home for example stopped sustainable use in 1977 when it had over 160000 elephants 6 titles 12 years later only 17000 were left in the senate means 90 percent were wiped out in 12 years because
8:39 pm
the animals had not only lost their value to the local population but were also threatening their meager agricultural yields that's wrong and completely different to our situation. within the space of 20 years pops to achieve something few before he managed a revival of the wilderness some good today is home to numerous packs of extremely rare african wild dogs thousands of antelopes. nearly 100 lions. and about $900.00 elephants. in. the 6th sense is impressive but it is both a blessing and a curse in the animal problem we face in the world this human induced because we're trying to pull the animals into certain areas animals know when impacting on the environment and that's a natural instinct like some great but now there's no way to meet with because all
8:40 pm
these big world in a serious are surrounded by people and the animals if play moves they get killed and if they stay late too much and continued to warn us i'm sorry it's a vicious circle that we've got to try and manage. inside fenced areas wildlife management is essential this is true of nature reserves elephants are the crowning glory of this wilderness they're wonderful unless you have too many of them. this vast area has enough space for 200 maybe 300 elephants around it if i have 600 to 900 at any given time and the. $3.00 to $600.00 too many that some feel and they wreak incredible damage issue even though tomo perma trees have been snapped like matchsticks the ground become so rodent hardened that nothing grows owners and whole swathes of land resemble a lunar landscape. 90 percent of the trees some of which are
8:41 pm
a 1000 years old have suffered massive damage to preserve the ecosystem parts says the number of elephants needs to be regulated. and we were granted permission to cull these elephants mixed in not as trophies on safari house so let's just call them. that's something i really don't want to do. we're negotiating to relocate 400 elephants to 2 other parks in zimbabwe. and i hope we can reduce numbers that way although up in the current. part already relocated $100.00 elephants to neighboring national parks and $26.00 jane. sango success in reviving animal populations is based on a concept that shunned by most and move welfare organizations it combines wildlife management with sustainable tourism and hunting. part local communities have
8:42 pm
embraced the approach which is hardly surprising given that some go directly or indirectly feed some 30150 in the surrounding villages. elephants once roamed much of the planet but over the last 2 centuries african savanna elephants have been decimated by the destruction of their habitat for farmland and the greed for ivory in europe america and asia. their numbers have declined from an estimated 20000000 to around 350000 elephants today. the result of a trend that has continued since europe's colonial exploitation of africa.
8:43 pm
today the remnants of the once mighty herd survive only an isolated population south of the sahara. there is probably more ivory in our collections in asia and europe than there is an elephant still alive in the wild. back aslam the old lot forest was home to the german ivory museum in the late 19th century more than 800 tons of african ivory was shipped to europe every year. at a behringer is the scientific director of the museum where prize exhibits date back to the ivory boom of the 19th century. the subject this object is very special for 2 reasons i my thirst it's a fine depiction of
8:44 pm
a key motive the ad in the out and about like namely a hunting scene in a jack and 2nd and you can clearly recognize the structure of the elephant tusk in a funny stores sans. by the 19th century machines could produce even very intricate objects a museum an air power house is one of the world's oldest functioning lights this was used to serially produced ivory pieces through the industrial revolution ivory objects became mass produced but not all the museums exhibits come from europe. 'd happen here and quote this is a ball that contains 23 more balls inside i don't know how byte it went these were called chinese savannah's and one made in china from the middle of the 18th century for example to your us part now i hope that in the fattish.
8:45 pm
one city in particular is famous for this ivory city as. one show. 2 with 12000000 inhabitants this metropolis in southern china is one of the people's republic smegma cities. the chinese call the region the factory of the world. ivory carving has a long tradition here its roots go back to start a new year's. show is world famous for its delicate spheres which are turned and carved from sardar free up to $45.00 finely chiseled wafer thin layers rotate freely around each other artisans who specialize in a labyrinth carvings figurative millet shoes and scenes depicting rural life. true
8:46 pm
masterpieces of far eastern craftsmanship. the world was born in one show she has been keeping tabs on the city's illegal trade in wild animal products for over 5 years. the last 5 come here maybe last years there is a lot of my most i've read here in this market like the whole forest member i will leave here but like one year's leave her now and they're gone. like one or 2 here or so it looks at 1st glance but in the winding alleys of the old town more shops sell ivory on closer inspection doubts arise as to whether this is legal mammoth ivory. some of the tasks are to watch and smooth and the trend is a conspicuously cautious filming is not welcome here using
8:47 pm
a hidden camera we managed to shoot high resolution video of the cross-section of the tomsk that has just been on packed a lighter analysis shows it is african ivory. demand remain strong despite the trade ban china's burgeoning middle class can afford status symbols once reserved for the ladies including ivory. but many consumers don't know that elephants the killed for their tusks. was capital harare is one of the main hubs of the ivory business in africa. daniel styles has carried out extensive research on its international trade. he believes the assumption that international trade balance start poaching is a widespread misconception and one that animal welfare organizations use to their
8:48 pm
advantage. they take donations from the public through very emotive. public relations type campaigning but some claim that the old theory or motor is that they want money and they create a crisis together i think it's something to look into because it's been going on for 40 years and yet we have 40 years of failure. we have 40 years of losing habitat 40 years of losing numbers of wildlife except in southern africa. where they have consumptive use why are all these n.g.o.s campaigning for a model that failed. by ivory inside african countries like here in zimbabwe is still the legal you don't need becomes illegal when ivory insult across borders. the only difficulty is being easy on the export of from zimbabwe so you
8:49 pm
find we still have covers was all that serious but now for them to get the business that tooled up for the sext in their livelihood is becoming a challenge. they are doing. the orthodox way or for exporting i for. her it is home to some $10000.00 chinese citizens i'm from carvings frequently used in power when the knock each of chinese tourists and workers smuggling is the common way to get ivory out of the country. to main places that but by far the most raw ivory out of africa was hong kong and japan in the 1980 s. they knew this ban was coming because it was all the ngos were up in arms about it . so they started stockpiling that cause massive poaching which ensures loved. one thing fed the other. the approaching ban led to
8:50 pm
more poaching which led to more pressure from animal rights groups and in 1909 international governments signed up to a trade ban on ivory after that hong kong and japan flooded the market with stop pound are very all of the anti trade people say look what happens when you have a ban this wonderful prices drop poaching drops that's why we want our ban. but i'm very reserved in asia have synced windowed and poaching is on the rise again in theory tried in ivory is currently not possible but there appears to be little concern about bans the profits a tune tossing. more than one view on people being a huge market for ai weiwei. hong kong is the hub for illegal ivory trade in asia colum dawson is british and is litigious 30 years he's the
8:51 pm
founder of the local organization elephant foundation and strictly opposes all my free trading knives states and i when the site is full of its violence. the right to consumption of library at that time it was estimated that the ivory stockers should roll out in all 3000 yet we thought in 2019. nearly as much ivory still drives stocks are illegally replenished with goods shipped into hong kong's port this is the territories container terminal a gateway for all kinds of goods including smuggled ivory it has the capacity to handle 18000000 containers per year of volume of goods that's impossible to monitor triton ivory was banned within china's national borders in 2018 but in hong kong an autonomous special administrative region the regulation doesn't take effect until 2021 every shop sell virenque is meant to. display problem the way it's
8:52 pm
license to sell ivory and i can't see a license in the window here says it can survive or if i'm just going the way here . hold together much larger shop the shops are full of ivory. all of their own media well no 2 of these. government licenses that have been issued to try this since the 1989 bank allow them to sell elephant ivory they have acquired before that tight but only with the hong kong some shop owners only have stocks of mammoth ivory at least officially. have mostly now on the mind of the class so a lot of ivory. because it's so people need to leave my father alone i love to come
8:53 pm
out so that's how we are. we are poor here so. most a still selling african ivory. in the window well how much is that $120000.00 with which nationality is buying or ivory. or do i live overseas now and. it's simply not true that elephant ivory is sold only to residents of hong kong traders pretend to be complying with the laws but secretly continue peddling elephant ivory is the success that n.g.o.s tell really just a sham. very much of the belief that the killing will only stop when the buying does so the demand has got to disappear. first 70 percent of people we speak with don't know an elephant dies to get its ivory and
8:54 pm
the minute they fully understand that they want nothing to do with the ivory trade or sort of. spreading awareness is key to fighting the ivory trade collen thorson hopes education children can help. we go to schools in hong kong because we're very aware that children get very excited about this we also feel that many children don't have a preconceived idea of what they're thinking so they come in with an open mind open mind for discussion and we know they go home they talk to their parents about this and we know this has an effect on the way parents think. mammoth ivory is a substitute for which no living animal has to die. could a regulated trade uncertified ivory reduce the poaching pressure on africa's elephants. critics of the ivory trade ban say a western style approach to conservation has harmed wildlife in africa ignoring
8:55 pm
traditional practices for animal management the appropriate to the values of local cultures and imposing draconian punishments for poaching that to date have yielded little to no success. there are many n.g.o.s out there who are really really good and they were cautious where the vets save the rhinos in australia it's. in kenya it's r.u.c. and in kenya it's world wildlife fund there looks are good guys but you know they're also enough bad guys and the bad guys to me hard to find so those who are against sustainable use which is the funding model for 75 percent of all water drive areas in southern africa south africa southern africa. others vigorously defend the ban on ivory is an indispensable weapon in a fund to siphon reference. we have
8:56 pm
seen in the past massive declines in elephant populations we saw poaching of up to 96 elephants a day a couple years ago because of the rampant ivory trade and the involvement of organized criminal networks we have to keep the ivory trade closed there is no way that the elephants of west africa central africa or east africa would survive if we allowed out more ivory trade even legal trade from healthy populations in southern africa. but it's a fact that bands have not succeeded in reducing punching so what is the solution. i went to the last conference in 200. on the ground floor we had all those. animal right tristram whatever it is i went to every single one of them i've got too many lives no answers got to me the elephant no answer i have a drought whatever you want us to stop the income from sustainable use for hunting
8:57 pm
no longer. for conservation a struggle to find the right strategies to protect the elephants the animals numbers continue to decline really perhaps says his experience on the ground has shown that in the face of rapid habitat loss elephants will only survive if conservation pays for itself and brings economic benefits to the local population. it's a complicated situation with no quick fix millennia old traditions like those in china to not change overnight and the ivory mafia won't give up its profits voluntarily. mammoth ivory could be part of the solution there are enough supplies for the time being and many chinese consumers ultimately don't care where their ivory comes from. but as long as they're a vested interest an explosion wildlife or financial gain africa's elephants face
8:58 pm
an uncertain future. it's high time for a paradigm shift in wildlife conservation bands alone and not enough a unified sustainable approach is needed to ensure that these are not the twilight years of african elephants. this legal system. but nobody ever dreamt it turn out the way it did. still some things never seem to change. plus one of our seems to go.
8:59 pm
30 minutes on d w. i'm neal i'm good welcome to the 2nd season of only good friends still back environment still about society it's still about us put off limits on the brink he spoke to several leading experts in the field. look up just a little only recently spoke. with different languages we fight for different things that's fine let me all stick up for freedom freedom of speech and freedom of press. giving freedom of choice
9:00 pm
global news that matters w made for mines. player . play. this is in g.w. news why. tonight in the race to succeed german chancellor angela merkel there may just be a new front runner and he's from but today the german chancellor held a very public get together with mark reuss the leader of the area now much of germany and europe are asking is he the one also coming up france celebrates still
16 Views
Uploaded by TV Archive on
