Help stop illegal ivory trade by asking Chinese stars to educate public.

  • by: Laura Schwendinger
  • recipient: Chinese celebrities and those who wish to see elephants survive.

Most of the new middle class in China are buying illegal carvings because they are being told the ivory can be taken without killing elephants. The trade will shrink if Chinese buyers know the truth about the killing of the elephants.

Please help stop the increased illegal ivory traffic to China to help save the African elephant.





Dear Signer, Please help enlist celebrities in China to educate the population there that elephants are being slaughtered illegally, and that unless the thirst for ivory stops the future of the African elephant is all but doomed. Armed wildlife rangers recently fanned out across eastern Kenya in pursuit of ivory poachers who killed an entire family of 12 elephants in the country's worst single such slaughter since the 1980s. The attack was the latest in a surge of elephant deaths that has seen the number of the animals killed for their ivory in Kenya increase sevenfold in five years, from fewer than 50 in 2007 to 360 in 2012, according to KWS figures. The increase has led many wildlife experts to declare the current situation a crisis worse even than the mass slaughter of Africa's elephants in the 1970s and 1980s, which led to a global ivory trade ban in 1989.  "Now the situation is far graver, because we have fewer elephants left, but the demand for ivory is far greater," said Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of the British and Kenyan organisation Save The Elephants. "The only thing that will radically alter the situation now is somehow to lower that demand."





Chinese investors have anointed it “white gold.” Carvers and collectors prefer the term “organic gemstone.” Smugglers, however, use a gruesomely straightforward name for the recently harvested African elephant tusk. Critics say the Chinese government is not doing enough to stem the illicit ivory trade, which has exploded in the five years since conservationists and governments agreed to a program of limited ivory sales intended to stifle poaching and revive a centuries-old handicraft. Since the beginning of 2012, more than 32,000 elephants have been illegally killed, according to the Born Free Foundation a wildlife organization, and conservationists say the majority of ivory sold in China, which sells for more than $1,300 a pound on the black market.

Sign Petition
Sign Petition
You have JavaScript disabled. Without it, our site might not function properly.

Privacy Policy

By signing, you accept Care2's Terms of Service.
You can unsub at any time here.

Having problems signing this? Let us know.