It’s been said that insanity is doing the same action over and over and expecting a different outcome. We have been mindful of that idea as we’ve followed the reactions from supporters of commercial ivory sales to restrictions recently imposed by President Obama at the suggestion of his Advisory Council on Wildlife Trafficking, upon which we are privileged to serve.

The president’s boldest – and most controversial – decision was to prohibit all commercial imports and interstate commerce in elephant ivory, including antiques. Opponents suggest this unfairly targets owners of legal ivory and argue that the new rules will do nothing to protect elephants in Africa. To secure elephants and their habitats, argue critics (who say they support such a goal), only a legal ivory market will do.

In fact, we have lived with a legal ivory market for many years. It has enabled purveyors of illegal ivory (obtained from the slaughter of elephants for their tusks) to launder their goods, falsely claiming new ivory to be antique or at the very least purchased prior to a ban imposed on the international commercial ivory trade by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. Antique ivory is virtually indistinguishable from fresh, particularly when carved or otherwise processed.

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