By: Don Giottonini

Only in California would lawmakers try to make the possession of a perfectly legal antique a crime overnight.

Assembly Bill 96, by Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins (D- San Diego) and State Senator Richard Lara (D-Bell Gardens), would do just that because it would make it illegal to own, possess or transfer ivory even if that ivory was legally purchased or inherited.

The civil and criminal penalties under AB 96 make it worse to possess ivory than for a convicted felon to be in the possession of illegal firearm. How twisted is that?

In 1977, California banned the sale of ivory and with the multiple layers of state, federal and international laws. That law is part of a vast and complex web of state, federal and international laws already in place to protect elephants by drying up the black market ivory trade.

But AB 96 goes way to far by creating a new form of asset forfeiture that essentially devalues property now legally owned and deprives individuals of their property without compensation or due process. This is a blatant violation of the Constitution of the United States. It also contradicts action in Sacramento that has tried to protect against asset forfeiture in other areas of law.

AB 96 should be prospective to ensure property rights aren’t violated. California should be targeting any new ivory illegally entering the state – not legal family heirlooms and antiques.

Unless amended, AB 96 will have many unintended consequences. It will result in protracted and costly legal battles against the state over the constitutionality of AB 96. It will lead to raids by Department of Fish & Wildlife in urban areas that divert precious resources from protecting California wildlife against poaching in the Golden State. It will harm families or non-profits prevented from auctioning valuable antique heirlooms – jewelry, artwork and furniture containing ivory. It will mean lost revenue to dealers currently in possession of legal ivory who would not be able to sell those antiques.

Congress and the federal government have just released new regulations for improving how states can better manage ivory sales.  The California state legislature should first review the new federal regulations, before it acts prematurely.

I don’t fault the goal of AB 96. But it is incredibly flawed. Rather than protecting elephants, it will turn law-abiding citizens into criminals and unjustly turn valuable family heirlooms into worthless items overnight. This elephant bill tramples on fundamental constitutional rights and needs to be fixed before it becomes law.

About Don Giottonini:
Don Giottonini is president of the Sacramento chapter of Safari Club International. The above article ran in August 26th, 2015 issue The Fox & Hounds.

June 16, 2015

The Honorable Fran Pavley
Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee
State Capitol — Room 5046
Sacramento, California 95814

RE: Assembly Bill 96 (Atkins)
Position: OPPOSE

Dear Chairwoman Pavley:

On behalf of the Ivory Education Institute I am expressing our opposition to AB 96. The Ivory Education Institute is headquartered in Los Angeles and is dedicated to enhancing understanding of the cultural importance of ivory.

In our view, AB 96 cannot save one elephant in Africa — but it will hurt millions of Californians who own and have inherited ivory heirlooms over the years.

• The market for illegal ivory products is overwhelmingly in East Asia — certifiably not the U.S. To punish Californians for having something that had been legally obtained and has been of immense artistic, practical, scientific and cultural importance since before Biblical times is tantamount to the Taliban’s desecration of Buddhist statues in Afghanistan and the Islamic State’s destruction of artifacts in Iraq.
• How can banning all trade in important cultural artifacts carved from fossilized walrus or from mammoth and mastodon tusks — animals that have been extinct for tens of thousands of years — have anything reasonably or realistically to do with saving African elephants today?
• Why is it that expert opinion is good enough to determine the authenticity of paintings that the Getty, LACMA and other museums buy for hundreds of millions of dollars, but it isn’t good enough to determine the age, type, or provenance of objects made from or with ivory?
• How is it fair to throw millions of ordinary citizens who have inherited or preserved ivory pieces under the bus, but allow musicians and museums to keep, use and trade their ivory objects unhampered by the Government of California?
• Why hasn’t anyone demanded evidence from animal rights extremists that banning ivory in California is the most important thing to be done to save African elephants that the activists claim are about to become extinct?

Of course this point demands a further question. Are elephants really about to become extinct?

• An estimated 15% of the elephants that extremists say are “killed” by poachers each year are actually dying from other causes. Old age, overcrowding, disease, and accidents catch up with elephants just as they do with humans. Other animals are legally hunted as a source of food in villages and culled to prevent land destruction or overcrowding.
• In southern Africa today, the size of elephant herds are growing in part because managed conservation techniques can balance the needs and interests of local communities with those of the elephants. Once locals begin appreciating the benefits of wildlife tourism, they gain a major economic stake in protecting their animals. Soon, corruption decreases, herds grow and a reasonable balance between man and animal is achieved.
• Researchers for the UN Environment Programme, Interpol, and the Ivory Education Institute all conclude that terrorism is not an integral aspect of wildlife trafficking in Africa. There just aren’t enough elephants in the areas where al Shabab, Boko Haram, the Lord’s Resistance Army and other extremist  groups operate to support their financial needs, especially in light of other available more lucrative illegal activities.

Worse, AB 96 assumes that cutting off supply in California will somehow end demand in East Asia. History shows us how other examples of this type of wishful thinking has become failed government policy.

• Prohibition didn’t stem the supply of alcohol or stop drinking; on the contrary, both increased dramatically.
• The War on Drugs hasn’t ended marijuana and cocaine use in our society; they are still doing damage on the streets of America.
• Illegal immigration hasn’t stopped with a fence or increased surveillance technology; it is still going on.

The solution to the ivory question is rooted in managing demand rather than in stopping supply. Specialists involved with ivory believe that a consistent, controlled marketplace for ivory — using tusks in storage, from animals that die of natural causes as well as hunting and culling activities, and ivory that has been recycled — would allow for managed conservation techniques, establish a stable pricing mechanism to satisfy demand, and allow ivory to assume its historic role in our culture.

What follows is a response to the analysis prepared by the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee staff for the hearing on 10 March 2015.

1.   “it is very difficult to determine the age of the ivory.”

This is a total myth. No appraiser, artisan, auctioneer, antique dealer, conservator, collector or curator that handles ivory on a consistent basis has any difficulty determining its probable age, type, or provenance. Moreover, the Ivory Education Institute has sponsored a scientific project to provide government authorities with a non-invasive, non-destructive, inexpensive and quick means of determining the age and type of any ivory or ivory-substitute material. The State of California should be supporting this type of research rather than giving up because the task seems “difficult.”

 2.   “growing demand for elephant ivory … is causing prices to soar for these illegal commodities and the black market for poachers trading in these illegal goods to thrive.”

Most serious and knowledgeable authorities such as Dr. Dan Stiles and Dr. Brendan Moyle (Stiles — a Californian, lives in Kenya and has worked for the UN, most of the NGOs, and now heads a project to protect small apes in Africa. He conducted the NDRC survey that AB 96 is based on. Moyle is from New Zealand, teaches economics at Massey University, and is dedicated to saving endangered species in Africa) believe that ivory prices in Asia have increased because the supply of raw ivory to the 27 legal factories in China has been so uncertain. Rather than providing a consistent supply of tusks from legal sources that the legitimate market can rely on, the market is dependent on erratic releases of legal ivory, existing inventory, recycled pieces, and smuggled ivory that has corruptly been legitimized. Lower prices resulting from a consistent, regulated and legal supply would eliminate the high profit incentive attracting poachers.

 3.   “The United States is one of the largest consumers of illegal ivory in the world,”

Another myth. CITES (the Geneva-based organization enforcing the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) has praised the U.S. for the tiny amount of illegal ivory coming into its markets. The latest figures suggest that ICE has confiscated a few pounds of ivory in the last several years, not from professional smuggling operations, but most likely from hapless tourists bringing home a souvenir.

 4.   “California is the second largest U.S. retail market for illegal ivory behind the state of New York.”

This statement sounds worrisome, but it is full of holes. Given the fact that California — with 38.8 million inhabitants — has nearly twice the population of the State of New York (19.75), being second means it is actually miles behind. Then there is the question of how the illegal ivory statistics were developed. We don’t know about New York’s methodology, but we know that California’s “illegal” market is based on a survey conducted by Dan Stiles. He was asked by the Natural Resources Defense Council to visit antique shops, flea markets, auction houses, and the like in Los Angeles and San Francisco to determine the number of items that were “potentially” worked before 1977. As he himself notes, there is a huge quantitative gulf between “potentially” and “probably.” Anyone wanting to cook the numbers can fit nearly everything seen under the rubric of “potentially” while it takes judgment, care, and some demonstrable evidence to make a finding of “probable.”

 5.   “On average, 96 elephants per day are brutally killed for their ivory, translating into an average of over 35,000 elephants per year.”

The World Wildlife Society has a major public relations program called the 96 Campaign and Speaker Adkins had her bill assigned the number 96 to hammer home the message that 96 elephants die per day from poachers. Yet no one has provided a shred of evidence that the number is valid. Those who conduct elephant censuses admit the difficulty of finding the herds in the forest to do an actual count. So they rely on a mixture of calculations based on water hole sightings, dung droppings in particular areas, carcasses found, habitat destruction, historical data, and other guesstimates to estimate elephant populations from year to year. The fact that a decrease in any particular herd might be from natural causes is an inconvenient fact that zealots choose to ignore. While poaching is certainly occurring in north central Africa, the fact that elephant numbers are growing in southern Africa is never mentioned. Finally, the fact that 35,000 elephants would produce 70,000 tusks and the tusks would very conservatively weigh about 10-pounds each, there would be 700,000 pounds of ivory coming into the market each year. Where is it? Who is working this volume of ivory and where are the finished products being sold to sustain continuous buying of this amount? No one has seen anywhere near this amount of ivory — equivalent to the weight of 5 space shuttles or two Victorian houses. Why are those perpetrating this myth of 96 elephants being “brutally killed” each day for their ivory being given a free pass when it comes to the evidence for this highly suspect statement?

 6.   “according to the usfws … [the] legal ivory trade can serve as a cover for illegal trade. as one example, usfws and state officers seized more than two million dollars of illegal elephant ivory from two new york city retail stores in 2012.”

While the US Fish and Wildlife Service always notes this case, it is the ONLY such recent case on record. Rather than being an example of uncontrolled smuggling into the U.S. to satisfy a rampaging demand for ivory products, it is an isolated case of two loose canon merchants who tried to bring in goods from the Far East without the proper paperwork. There are no other cases of any size to support the assertion that the U.S. is a hotbed for smuggled ivory. Moreover, the Assembly analysis accepts another phony concern of the USFWS: “[B]y significantly restricting ivory trade in the United States, it will be more difficult to launder illegal ivory into the market and thus reduce the threat of poaching to imperiled elephant populations.” Since there is so little proven poaching product coming into the United States, ivory laundering — making new pieces appear old — is almost non-existent.

 7.   “numerous news outlets have reported on suspicions (emphasis added) that ivory poaching is becoming a growing source of funding for several terrorist organizations, including the janjaweed militia in sudan and the lord’s resistance army in uganda, and possibly including terrorist groups in Somalia.”

Please. How credible is an analysis that finds “numerous news outlets” (unnamed) have reported “suspicions” (based on what other than thin air assumptions) that poaching could be a source of funding. The Ivory Education Institute engaged Dan Stiles to conduct a study in 2014 on the link between poaching and a threat to U.S. national security. Dan found that “the evidence that … elephant poaching [is used} to finance … terrorist activities … lacking credibility.” The Speaker can’t have it both ways — relying on Dan’s California survey to project the danger to elephants in Africa and then rejecting Dan’s conclusions concerning the danger of poaching to U.S. national security.

 Bottom Line

Putting aside all other arguments, the fundamental fact is that there is absolutely no correlation between the trade and movement of ivory objects in California and the well being of elephants in Africa. Moreover, the rules for ivory ownership settled in 1977 are now being changed without justification. The claim in a Los Angeles Times editorial (June 8, 2015) that “the bill will not go into effect until July 2016. So anyone who wants to sell something will have more than six months to do so.” Either the Times knows nothing of the fire arts marketplace or someone is looking to make a killing in a fire sale marketplace. To ban all ivory — including ancient mammoth and fossilized walrus along with plentiful warthog, boar, and hippo ivory — in the hope of helping African elephants is ludicrous. To deprive Californians of their legitimately obtained property and to render its value in the open market worthless is probably an unconstitutional “taking” at best and unfair in the extreme.

For these reasons the Ivory Education Institute urges you to oppose AB 96.

 Sincerely

 Godfrey Harris
Managing Director
Ivory Education Institute

SURPRISINGLY, ONE OF LIFE’S TEACHABLE MOMENTS

By: Godfrey Harris

Authorities in Kenya set some 15 tons of ivory tusks on fire to show fidelity to World Wildlife Day on March 3rd. As the caption of the picture below that appeared in the next day’s issue of The New York Times noted:

“The event was intended to discourage poaching and illegal ivory trading.”

OK, but how many of the tusks burned that day had nothing to do with poaching because they came from animals that had died of natural causes?

While many of us would question whether an ivory bonfire could have any beneficial effects, it turns out that ivory is highly resistant to this kind of insult. According to Dr. Adolf P. Shvedchikov — the scientist leading the Ivory Education Institute’s effort to find an inexpensive, quick and non-invasive way to determine the type and age of ivory specimens — only about 20% of an elephant’s tusk is organic. That can burn. The rest of the tusk is composed of a mineral called hydroxyapatite [Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2]. While the organic component of a tusk might burn at 300° C with the help of an accelerant, the mineral portion can only decay in temperatures approaching 1000°C — a level of heat that is not easy to obtain.

The Kenyan fire was intended as a great public relations triumph for the animal rights groups. It turns out, however, to be a teachable moment for those who find the current attempts to ban all trade and movement of objects made from or with ivory forlorn. The very fact that the tusks could not be reduced to ash in an outdoor bonfire is one of the reasons why ivory has proven so valuable to cultures around the world. Because of its resistance to fire and decay, it has long been an important repository of historical data, practical uses, and artistic styles. That value should not be denied to our society or to any other on earth. There are ways to protect elephants and maintain a sound trade in tusks if those in authority would only begin to think instead of simply rearranging their prejudices.

About Godfrey Harris:
Godfrey Harris heads a public policy consulting firm in Los Angeles and is principal representative of the Political Action Network of the International Ivory Society.

A Practical Solution to the Issue

As Published in Perspective

LOS ANGELES — The Federal government’s recent effort to ban the sale and movement of objects made from or with ivory has gone quiet for the moment, perhaps in the face of the 2014 political changes in Congress. But the election results certainly haven’t slowed any of the animal rights groups from their concerted effort to demonize ivory.

These groups have simply shifted their disdain for this historic material to state capitals and major cities claiming that the country is swimming in illegal ivory. For proof, one group asked investigators to identify ivory for retail sale that “might possibly” have been worked after 1977. That could literally mean everything they saw since “might possibly” is a lot different than “was probably.” While Virginia has just refused to become involved, California, Washington, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, and Kansas as well as San Francisco and now Los Angeles are being asked to pass anti-ivory legislation contrary to the interests of millions of Americans and thousands of institutions that own ivory objects.

The 2014 Federal effort to convince the world that possessing one of its most precious materials is evil was met with strong opposition from museums, musicians, artisans, antique dealers, appraisers, auctioneers, collectors, hunters, academics, and many ordinary citizens who treasure or use objects containing ivory.

The Federal government’s approach to stopping elephant poaching seemed flawed from the outset:

• Since the market for illegal ivory products is overwhelmingly in East Asia — certifiably not the U.S. — why punish Americans for owning something that had been legally obtained; is of immense artistic, practical, historic, and scientific importance; and has been widely admired since time immemorial?
• How can banning trade in important cultural artifacts carved from fossilized walrus or from mammoth and mastodon tusks — animals that have been extinct for tens of thousands of years — have anything realistically to do with saving African elephants today?
• Why is it that expert opinion is good enough to determine the authenticity of paintings worth millions of dollars, but the Feds insists on seeing written documentation that never existed to determine whether an ivory object is legal or fake? Who has ever acquired a craftsman’s original invoice for an ivory object he made?
• Why is it that public officials assume that the millions of ordinary citizens who have inherited or preserved countless memorable and culturally important ivory pieces can be thrown under the bus in favor of a handful of vocal animal rights extremists who claim that banning ivory in America is the most important way to save African elephants that they repeatedly claim are about to become extinct?

Only someone who hasn’t been paying attention would miss the answer to these questions. It is MONEY! Insisting on ending the trade and movement of ivory objects to save elephants and stop terrorism raises large amounts from sympathetic donors. It doesn’t much matter whether the picture is of a bull elephant taken down for its tusks or a film of two young calves playing in the mud, elephants generate enormous interest, sympathy and smiles that translate into large contributions.

The more money that elephants can raise for animal rights groups, of course, the more powerful their leaders become in the scheme of governance. They are able to entertain lavishly, travel extensively and underwrite research generously and they can conduct surveys, buy ads and produce documentaries to raise even more money. But most of all they can pay themselves impressive salaries and make eye-opening contributions to support the reelection of like-minded politicians under the protection of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.

What a combination: Admired wild animals threatened by greedy, uncaring humans are saved by the concern of government leaders across the country. Impressive, but basically a fraud. Elephant numbers have been diminishing in certain parts of Africa, but not in others — and where the numbers are going down, the causes are not solely East Asian demand for ivory. While elephant herds have clearly suffered from the activities of poachers serving criminal gangs in the northern areas of central Africa, that isn’t the full story of the cause of the reduction in some herds.

• An estimated 15% of the elephants that the extremists say are “killed” by poachers each year are actually dying from natural causes. Old age, disease, and accidents catch up with elephants just as they do with humans. Moreover, elephants everywhere in Africa and Asia are in competition with humans for land. Elephants need enormous quantities of space to forage for food and water. Some have been eliminated by locals intent on saving their crops and villages from destruction and some have been hunted as a source of food.
• In southern parts of Africa, the same competition arises but the size of the elephant herds are growing in part because managed conservation techniques, where practiced, can balance the needs and interests of local communities with those of the elephants. Once locals begin appreciating the benefits of wildlife tourism, they gain a major economic stake in protecting their animals. Soon, corruption decreases, herds grow and a reasonable balance between man and animal is achieved. Ancillary benefits can come from selling the tusks of deceased and culled elephants with the money used to improve living conditions.
• Researchers for the UN Environment Programme, Interpol, and the Ivory Education Institute all conclude that terrorism is not an integral aspect of wildlife trafficking in Africa. There just aren’t enough elephants in the areas where al Shabab, Boko Haram, or the Lord’s Resistance Army are operating to support their financial needs, especially while other much more lucrative illegal funding sources are available to them.

But animal rights advocates, who live in big Western cities and often are unaware of human factors on the ground in Africa, have been convinced to view any ivory market as an incentive for poachers. They point to how a 2008 one-time sale of tusks only whetted appetites for more ivory in an insatiable wave of demand. Not true. The evidence from reputable researchers indicates that the one time sale was absorbed by speculators betting on a lack of a consistent future supply and that fear pushed the price of the remaining available ivory up, in turn increasing the incentive for poachers to do their evil. It is still going on. As long as people believe that they can repeal the laws of supply and demand, illegal activities and a black market will flourish.

Most of us don’t have to go too deeply into history to see other examples of the wishful thinking of naive do-gooders turned into expensive, failed government policy.

• Prohibition didn’t stem the supply of alcohol or stop drinking; on the contrary, both increased dramatically.
• The War on Drugs hasn’t ended marijuana and cocaine on American streets; they are still doing damage.
• Illegal immigration hasn’t stopped with a fence or increased surveillance technology; it is still going on.

The solution to the ivory question is rooted in managing demand rather than in trying to end supply. Specialists in ivory believe that if a consistent, controlled ivory marketplace were established and properly managed— using tusks in storage, tusks from animals that die of natural causes as well as culling practices, and ivory that has been recycled — it would allow for managed conservation techniques, establish a stable pricing mechanism to satisfy demand, and allow for ivory to be used for many of its historic purposes.

The notion that American consumption of ivory products stimulates Asian demand is a myth perpetrated by animal extremists abetted by zealous public relations firms. Where is their evidence? There is, in fact, no measurable U.S. demand for ivory objects from newly harvested tusks. State and city legislators should not buy into the kind of wooly thinking or wobbly reasoning being advanced by animal rights advocates.

They are in the game of manipulating elected officials to raise MONEY for their
organizations, not to save elephants in Africa. If they were serious about the latter effort, they
would stop using scare tactics, spreading false statistics, and offering half-truths, and start
spending more of their huge resources on Africa’s real conservation needs.

About Perspective:
Perspective — Understanding the News in Context,  is a periodical publication of Ivory Education Institute. The above article was published in the Vol. 2, No.1 issue on February 10, 2015.