TNAG-2131-FCO40-3046-Hong-Kong-and-the-ivory-trade-1990 — Page 64

recycled paper

AITERNATIONAL

FOR

NATURE

TRUST

CONSERVAT

PR-

13

16th March, 1990

Dear Prime Minister,

Since your letter of 7th February in reply to mine of 26th January protesting at the Government's Reservation regarding the ivory stockpiled in Hong Kong, a huge discrepancy has come to light between the figure put forward by Britain when it granted Hong Kong a six month's exemption from the ban on trade in ivory, and the Hong Kong Government's official figure of 474 tonnes. This is around 29 per cent less than the previously published amount which the Hong Kong Government now claims was only an estimate based on information supplied by ivory dealers, and was used by Britain to justify the entering of its Reservation.

Although in my previous letter I said that much of the ivory stock-piled in Hong Kong is illegal, in your reply you refer on four occasions to Hong Kong's "legally acquired" ivory. For some time the Government has conceded that some 7 per cent of Hong Kong's ivory (i.e. 47 tonnes on the Government's original figure) has been acquired illegally; now, however, the Government has been obliged to admit that in fact some 25 per cent (i.e. 167 tonnes on the Government's original figure) of the ivory in Hong Kong has no official documentation from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), despite the fact that only a little over 5 tonnes of ivory has been exported from Hong Kong since last October.

May I once again ask you, at this eleventh hour, to withdraw the British Reservation on the largely illegal stock-pile of ivory in Hong Kong.

Yours sincerely,

Christopher Lever:

The Prime Minister,

Sir Christopher Lever, Bt., Vice-President

The Rt. Hon. Margaret Thatcher, M.P.

ITNC, c/o Assistant Director, Royal Geographical Society 1 Kensington Gore, London SW7 2AR Telephone: 01-868 3499 Registered Charity No. 281101