Where did the ivory trade go after China banned elephant tusks? North, into the Russian permafrost — where an estimated 10M frozen mammoths lie waiting, and a kilogram of tusk fetches up to $1,900.
Mammoth tusks came to be known as “ethical ivory” after China banned imports of elephant tusks in 2017, closing the market that elephants were being slaughtered to supply. China and Hong Kong are home to the world’s most developed tusk-carving industry, in which a single piece can sell for as much as billions of rubles (tens of millions of dollars). Meeting that demand fell to Yakutia‘s tusk…
After China banned elephant ivory imports in 2017, the demand for ethical ivory shifted to the frozen mammoth tusks of Russia's Yakutia region. Yakutia, situated near the frozen permafrost and the remnants of extinct elephants, is home to an estimated 10 million mammoth carcasses. Hunters in the region spend days searching for these valuable tusks, which can fetch up to $1,900 per kilogram in China and Hong Kong.
As a result, Yakutia has become the top supplier of ethical ivory, accounting for up to 80% of the global supply.
Written by urgent.news from Meduza (English)'s reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
