A current survey of Thailand’s ivory market is certainly
needed, because Thailand has what is probably the
second largest illegal ivory market in the world after
China, and the country has been under intense scrutiny
and criticism by CITES. The 65th CITES Standing
Committee meeting held in July 2014 gave Thailand
until 30 September 2014 to submit a revised National
Ivory Action Plan, the original being deemed deficient,
which should include a list of actions to be achieved
by 31 March 2015 to regulate domestic ivory trade. It
also requested that a progress report on these actions
should be submitted by 15 January 2015. Failing this,
Thailand could face a CITES trade suspension, which
would be catastrophic for the country’s economy.
It is surprising, therefore, that TRAFFIC published
a report that is so deficient in so many respects. First,
the title is misleading. The report only concerns
Bangkok. The important ivory manufacturing and
worked ivory supply centres in central Thailand were
not visited, nor were Chiang Mai and Mae Sai in the
north, traditionally important ivory selling centres
because of their high tourism profile.
Previous published reports on Thailand’s ivory
market (Martin and Stiles 2002; Stiles 2004; Stiles
2009) included crucial raw and worked ivory price
data, counts and proportions of the different worked
ivory types, numbers of ivory workshops and
craftsmen, sources of raw ivory, and nationalities of
the principal buyers. None of these scale and trend
indicator variables were collected, which limits the
value of the TRAFFIC report substantially