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Danny Lee

Global wildlife monitors have called for external audits of Hong Kong's ivory stockpile, claiming a below-the-radar change in the way the city counts elephant tusks distorts the actual picture.
The officially declared ivory stock plummeted 47 per cent in two years after a change in accounting methods in 2008.
That suggested a need for yearly audits under strict protocols, Richard Thomas from Traffic, a network that monitored wildlife trade, said.
"Given there is clearly some confusion over the figures, it highlights why regular ivory stockpile audits should be carried out and the findings reported to the Cites Secretariat," he said.
Cites is a global treaty drawn up to protect wildlife and endangered species, and Hong Kong is one of its signatories.
Traffic said it was open to working alongside the government, and other NGOs, to answer questions about the city's ivory count, so as to gain deeper insight into the local market's dynamics.
Commercial ivory available in retail stores is included in official figures, but non-commercial stock, in personal and privately held possession, has been removed from the statistics.
The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department said a change in the law after 2006 meant licences for private stockpiles were no longer required, and that since the "majority" of licences had expired by 2009, this accounted for the steep drop.
Between 1990 and 2008, the local stockpile fell an average of 4 per cent a year, from 474 tonnes to 232 tonnes. In the next two years, the city posted a plunge of 47 per cent before achieving some stability, from 121.1 tonnes in 2010 to 117.1 tonnes in 2013.
Cites urges members  to "maintain an inventory of government-held stockpiles of ivory and, where possible, of significant privately held stockpiles of ivory within their territory, and inform the secretariat of the level of this stock each year". But a department spokesman said: "We do not have separate figures on ivory for commercial purposes, non-commercial purposes and pre-convention stock [of ivory]."
Asked why Hong Kong had not complied, the department said that because no licence was needed for private ownership, no records were compiled.
Cheryl Lo, senior wildlife crime officer at green group WWF Hong Kong, said the figures had "too much ambiguity".
She also cited a conservation report last month criticising law enforcers for failing to tackle cross-border ivory smuggling. The report found 30,800 ivory items were on sale this year, compared with 33,500 on sale in 2010.
Lo described the data as "contradictory", saying: "The stockpile has been consumed so slowly over the last four years. That raises a huge question for the 30,000 items found for sale on the ivory market."
 


Global wildlife monitors urge external audits of Hong Kong's ivory stockpile

Hong Kong is a signatory to a treaty to protect wildlife. Photo: EPA

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