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Concept
Ivory trade
Summary
The ivory trade is the commercial, often illegal trade in the ivory tusks of the hippopotamus, walrus, narwhal, black and white rhinos, mammoth, and most commonly, African and Asian elephants.
Ivory has been traded for hundreds of years by people in Africa and Asia, resulting in restrictions and bans. Ivory was formerly used to make piano keys and other decorative items because of the white color it presents when processed but the piano industry abandoned ivory as a key covering material in the 1980s in favor of other materials such as plastic. Also, synthetic ivory has been developed which can be used as an alternative material for making piano keys.
Elephant ivory has been exported from Africa and Asia for millennia with records going back to the 14th century BCE. Transport of the heavy commodity was always difficult, and with the establishment of the early-modern slave trades from East and West Africa, freshly captured slaves were used to carry the heavy tusks to the ports where both the tusks and their carriers were sold. The ivory was used for piano keys, billiard balls and other expressions of exotic wealth. At the peak of the ivory trade, pre-20th century, during the colonization of Africa, around 800 to 1,000 tonnes of ivory was sent to Europe alone every year.
World wars and the subsequent economic depressions caused a lull in this luxury commodity, but increased prosperity in the early 1970s saw a resurgence. Japan, relieved from its exchange restrictions imposed after World War II, started to buy up raw (unworked) ivory. This started to put pressure on the forest elephants of Africa and Asia, both of which were used to supply the hard ivory preferred by the Japanese for the production of hanko, name seal stamps used like a signature. Prior to this period, most name seals had been made from wood with an ivory tip, carved with the signature, but increased prosperity saw the formerly unseen solid ivory hanko in mass production. Softer ivory from East Africa and southern Africa was traded for souvenirs, jewelry and trinkets.
Official source
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