Prayers of Buddhist monks and Hindi priests rose in the air for the hundreds of thousands of elephants slaughtered for their ivory as an industrial crusher came to life in Thailand’s capital city of Bangkok. Over two tons of elephant tusks, carved ivory, and trinkets—most of it from elephants poached a continent away in Africa—made its way into the machine that ground the ivory into chips.
2016 may prove to be the most important year in history for the global effort to stop wildlife crime and end Thailand’s ivory trade. This year, WWF will be working day and night to ensure that Thailand’s ivory trade is heavily regulated or ended, and we are launching an unprecedented campaign to convince the Thai public not to buy ivory and make the connection between ivory and dead elephants.
This campaign will build upon a three year history of successful campaigning on the issue, including a momentous 2015, which proved to be a game changer. The year included new laws and regulations, and a huge public campaign against ivory involving over 1.3 million Thais. As Thailand had one of the world’s largest unregulated ivory markets, the changing nature of the trade could provide a lifeline to African elephants