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A recent survey of savanna elephant populations estimated that poachers killed 30,000 animals annually between 2007 and 2014, reducing the population to fewer than 400,000. Overall, researchers estimate that African elephant numbers have plummeted more than 95% over the past century.

[...] Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa—are expected to offer proposals for restarting a legal ivory trade. All argue that some elephant populations are healthy enough to be managed for ivory production. The proposals envision taking tusks from both animals that are intentionally killed—sometimes because they become nuisances, trampling crops and threatening people—and those that die naturally.

At the same time, we cannot brush aside the fact that poaching has reached industrial scale fuelled by an increase in consumer demand driven by the rise of the middle class in countries like China. We must urgently work on finding ways to change consumer behavior as the only avenue by which we can resolve the ivory trade tragedy.