China Faces A Conservation Challenge: The Expanding Elephant And Mammoth Ivory Trade In Beijing And Shanghai (2014)

The Chinese ivory industry has been expanding tremendously, especially in the last five years. Illegal ivory imports are the largest in the world by weight and have been soaring; the wholesale price of raw tusks sold for carving has tripled since 2010; the number of official ivory carving factories has risen several-fold; the number of carvers is way up, the number of legal (licensed) retail outlets for elephant ivory has increased significantly as has the number of illegal (unlicensed) outlets selling elephant ivory; there has been a boom in customers for elephant ivory, both legal and illegal, both raw and worked, especially by collectors and investors in China; retail prices for ivory items have skyrocketed; and some businesspeople are optimistic about future economic benefits of trading in ivory.