a, Asia, Europe and the USA since 1999, most of them in collaboration with Esmond Martin. Somecountries I have surveyed more than once and I havealso undertaken longer term research on ivory carv-ers in South East Asia. This experience has given meinsights into the workings of the ivory industry atnational and international levels and I would like toshare here some of my thoughts on aspects of whatis occurring concerning the ivory trade.There are fundamental problems with the exist-ing situation that lead to unnecessary elephant poach-ing, which is apparently reaching alarming levels inboth Africa and Asia (Anon. 2008a; Kaufman 2007;Mubalama and Bashigg 2006; Blake et al. 2007; Fay2007; Born Free 2007; Wasser et al. 2007, 2008; Tom-linson 2008). The baseline data report of the MIKEprogramme, managed under the auspices of the Con-vention on International Trade in Endangered Speciesof Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), showed that Centraland East Africa had the highest rates of illegal elephantkilling in recent years (Anon. 2007). Central Africa isthought to be a region particularly affected by elephantpoaching (Hunter et al. 2004; Milliken et al. 2007).