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environmental
advice pl
INVESTIGATION
Lord Caithness,
agency
Dept of the Environment,
2 Marsham St.,
London SW1P 3EB.
Aduce fl
ç issul
25th May 1989
Dear Lord Caithness,
While welcoming your statement on Tuesday on the African elephant the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) hopes that more urgent action will be taken. I request that you give considerable thought to the problem of Hong Kong as the world's market place. Although it is true that legislative control exists for imports of ivory, the reality of actual imports is very different.
EIA has been investigating the international ivory trade for the last two years and provided ITN with the News Specials on the ivory trade broadcast on the 10th, 11th and 12th May,
Hong Kong has been used as the market place for poached ivory for many years and is the headquarters of the main international traders controlling the illegal ivory trade. Although Hong Kong requires CITES permits for the import of ivory, the system is routinely abused and easily circumvented.
The 'control' system operated through CITES has not been working and traders have easily been able to use loopholes or simply smuggle their poached tusks. Once ivory is in Hong Kong it is sold on to the world market. Since Hong Kong does not require CITES parmits for exported worked ivory, traders consider the territory as the most important destination for their poached tusks so as to launder it into the legal system.
Although some of the ivory imported into Hong Kong has the required paperwork, investigations have shown that there are so many loopholes that the paper is easily obtained. Last week it was revealed that a TV Reporter from 'The Cook Raport' was able to easily buy a permit to import ivory into Hong Kong.
Hong Kong trade statistics show that in 1988 Hong Kong imported over 12 tonnes of raw ivory from three different countries which did not have an axport quota for 1988 (Djibouti, Ivory Coast, and Uganda). In addition to this 1988 statistics show that almost HK$10 million worth of carved ivory was imported directly from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the world's main entrepot for poached tusks. Some of this was imported wall after Hong Kong introduced an amendment to its Ordinance requiring CITES permits for imported worked ivory.
In the UAE, carving factories have been set up to work poached ivory 80 that it can be laundered into the markets. These factories use Hong Kong Chinese labour and are owned by Hong Kong Chinese. The three Poon brothers have been exploiting the ivory system to launder ivory into Hong Kong. They own factories and shops in the UAE, Singapore, Hong Kong, and France. Two
EIA Lid. Rog. Office: 208/209 Upper Street, London NI IRL Tel: (01) 704 944) Tlx: 8813271 GECOMS O Directors: D. Currov. J. Lonsdale. A. Thornton. Reg. No: 1849442 VAT No; 440 5698 42