{"id":913891,"date":"2026-10-02T21:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T21:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/913891\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T21:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T21:08:11","slug":"australia-is-no-longer-promising-to-ban-domestic-trade-of-elephant-ivory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/913891\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia is no longer promising to ban domestic trade of elephant ivory"},"content":{"rendered":"

You can’t sell a feather from a native bird without a permit in most parts of Australia.<\/p>\n

But you can sell elephant ivory, through social media, without proof it has been ethically sourced.<\/p>\n

That is despite African and Asian elephant species being in danger of extinction from poaching for their tusks.<\/p>\n

About $1.2 million worth of ivory objects were advertised in Australia for sale over a six-month period last year through online stores, auction sites and Facebook Marketplace.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A new study, published in Biological Conservation<\/a>, found less than 1 per cent of the 1,698 ivory listings from 70 vendors were advertised with documentation that showed they were legally imported.<\/p>\n

\"Three<\/p>\n

African elephant populations are still under threat from pressures like poaching. (iNaturalist: Zephaniah Birder<\/a>\/African savanna elephant<\/a>\/CC BY-NC 4.0<\/a>)<\/p>\n

About 9 per cent of items were advertised with a country of origin and 62 per cent with an approximate age.<\/p>\n

“Very, very, few dealers mentioned up-front in their online listing that their item came with paperwork,” the study’s lead author Damien Huffer, an illicit tracking researcher at the University of Adelaide, said.<\/p>\n

“In the absence of enforceable laws requiring vendors to verify or disclose an item’s composition, origin, or legality, ambiguity becomes the standard practice rather than the exception.”<\/p>\n

The study suggested there was a lack of political will at state or federal levels of government to address legal loopholes where certification is required to import ivory but not to sell items within Australia.<\/p>\n

That’s because a federal government promise in 2019<\/a> to enforce a domestic ban on the trade of ivory and rhinoceros horn never came to fruition.<\/p>\n

What ivory is legal in Australia?<\/p>\n

Ivory was once extensively used for decorative purposes either as full tusks or carved items.<\/p>\n

The material was also used as piano keys until being replaced with plastic.<\/p>\n

Ivory can only be imported into Australia if it came from Asian elephants before 1975 and from African elephants before 1990, and if there is certification of the object’s legitimacy.<\/p>\n

This is because Australia signed up to a treaty, known as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), that encourages members not to trade rhinoceros horn and elephant ivory as it fuels poaching of vulnerable species.<\/p>\n

\"Elephant<\/p>\n

Elephants are poached for their signature tusks which are sought after in the ivory trade. (ABC News: Martin Cuddihy)<\/p>\n

Elephants have suffered massive population drops in the past century.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Asian elephant numbers are estimated to have halved to about 50,000 over the past 75 years.<\/p>\n

African elephants are thought to have once numbered in their millions, but by 1979 there was an estimated 1.3 million. Today there is about 400,000.<\/p>\n

Ten years ago, a conference of CITES members recommended closing domestic ivory trade markets because of concerns they supported poaching.<\/p>\n

Countries like China, the United Kingdom and United States have since implemented local bans.<\/p>\n

Why isn’t there a domestic ban in Australia?<\/p>\n

Questions sent by the ABC to Environment Minister Murray Watt’s office asking if a domestic ban would still be sought in Australia were redirected to the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW).<\/p>\n

A DCCEEW spokesperson said the government would “continue to support the survival of iconic species to ensure that domestic markets for wildlife does not contribute to poaching or illegal trade”.<\/p>\n

“Australia’s domestic market does not represent a major threat to wild elephant or rhino populations,” they said.<\/p>\n

“And Australia is not identified as a country with substantial ivory smuggling or seizures.<\/p>\n

“Australia has exceeded its CITES obligations by effectively banning almost all commercial imports and exports of African elephant items since 1990.”<\/p>\n

But Dr Huffer said it was relatively easy to launder recently poached ivory into Australia or anywhere else with active domestic markets.<\/p>\n

“Australia remains one of the few active market countries for elephant ivory,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Most other countries with such markets, however, are taking more action to close their markets, both physical and online.”<\/p>\n

Auctioneers seek clarity<\/p>\n

Scientists and conservation groups are not the only ones concerned by Australia’s laws around domestic ivory sales.<\/p>\n

Auctioneers and Valuers Association of Australia chief executive Troy Williams said there needed to be a clear and nationally consistent framework governing the domestic trade in elephant ivory and rhinoceros horn.<\/p>\n

“Provenance is fundamental when dealing with sensitive wildlife material, both for establishing legitimacy and giving buyers confidence about what they are purchasing,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Williams said the lack of documentation demonstrated by the study was “noteworthy”, highlighting the need for reform.<\/p>\n

“AVAA supports a prohibition on commercial trade in elephant ivory and rhinoceros horn, accompanied by tightly defined exemptions for appropriate historical, cultural and other legitimate items.”<\/p>\n

Elephants ditch their tusks<\/a><\/p>\n

Ivory hunting has\u00a0pressured a population of African elephants to lose their tusks, researchers say, providing striking evidence of\u00a0rapid evolution driven by humans.<\/p>\n

Mr Williams said there was a strong case for government to revisit the issue.<\/p>\n

“A nationally consistent framework would provide greater certainty for the auction sector while strengthening protections against unlawful trade.”<\/p>\n

Dr Huffer said there were also important questions about ivory-like materials from other species.<\/p>\n

“We are currently working on a paper that surveys 2019\u20132026 online auction listings for mammoth, narwhal, hippopotamus, orca, sperm whale, and warthog,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We expect many categories of ivory or related ivory-like products benefit from the same loopholes.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You can’t sell a feather from a native bird without a permit in most parts of Australia. But…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":913892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[481608,64,63,481602,481607,481605,481604,481601,481606,481610,481603,128,481609,338],"class_list":["post-913891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-antique-ivory","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-ivory-laws","tag-australia-ivory-loophole","tag-elephant-ivory-australia","tag-is-ivory-legal-in-australia","tag-ivory-ban-australia","tag-ivory-online-listings-australia","tag-ivory-poaching","tag-rhino-horn-ban-australia","tag-science","tag-vintage-ivory","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=913891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/913892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=913891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=913891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=913891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}