February 11, 2009 3:56 PM
- Text
The Ivory War
Asked how much ivory has been seized, Milliken tells Pelley, "Well, last year, for example, in 2006, more than 25 tons of ivory was seized, according to our data."
"If the international trade in ivory was banned in 1989, why is it a problem again?" Pelley asks.
"Well, since the mid-1990s, the sleeping demand of China has awakened. And with 1.3 billion consumers, we've had an escalating trend in illegal trade in ivory ever since," Milliken explains.
Chinese consumers have more money than ever and ivory is a status symbol. Elephant tusks are being carved into everything from chop sticks to fine art.
"We have evidence of Chinese nationals implicated in ivory seizures or actually arrested in connection with ivory seizures in 22 of the 37 African elephant range states. The scale of illegal trade in ivory which directly implicates China has never been greater," Milliken says.
Milliken says China is trying harder. But illegal ivory is still sold in the open. And at the border, stopping it is like stopping drugs coming into the U.S.
When 60 Minutes arrived in Chad, we wondered if we were too late. We expected to see great herds. But we spotted only a few bulls which travel alone or in twos and threes.
Turns out, it's not so easy to find a few hundred elephants hiding in plain sight. Mike Fay searched by air for days. On the ground, the 60 Minutes team followed their trail. But elephant tracks in the mud are the worst potholes you can imagine.
After a week of this search, a major storm closed in on Fay's plane. At the last minute, he spotted what's rare even in Africa. "We've got about a hundred elephants here. One hundred elephants. And I'm gonna give you a position: 10 degrees, 58 minutes, 11 seconds. And 19 degrees, 51 minutes, zero one seconds," Fay radioed.
"We'll head to that coordinate and we'll contact you when we arrive," Pelley radioed back.
Fay landed ahead of the storm, and the 60 Minutes team ducked under it. A short time later, the rains cleared and we found them
There were more elephants than Fay had estimated -- when elephants huddle in herds this large, it's because they understand there's danger near.
"It's an astonishing sight to be nearly surrounded by this many elephants…there's about 200 of them. Most of them are gonna be females because they are leading the baby elephants through this forage. There are some elephants that I would take to be under two years old, maybe one-year-old and they are arrayed all around us," Pelley said, standing near the herd.
At sunset, the herd was about to move on.
The old matriarch was leading her elephants out of the protective boundaries of the refuge and into the wider savannah now turning green under the rains. The poachers know these seasons too and they're waiting.
Produced By Solly Granatstein and Jenny Dubin
Copyright 2009 CBS. All rights reserved. "If the international trade in ivory was banned in 1989, why is it a problem again?" Pelley asks.
"Well, since the mid-1990s, the sleeping demand of China has awakened. And with 1.3 billion consumers, we've had an escalating trend in illegal trade in ivory ever since," Milliken explains.
Chinese consumers have more money than ever and ivory is a status symbol. Elephant tusks are being carved into everything from chop sticks to fine art.
"We have evidence of Chinese nationals implicated in ivory seizures or actually arrested in connection with ivory seizures in 22 of the 37 African elephant range states. The scale of illegal trade in ivory which directly implicates China has never been greater," Milliken says.
Milliken says China is trying harder. But illegal ivory is still sold in the open. And at the border, stopping it is like stopping drugs coming into the U.S.
When 60 Minutes arrived in Chad, we wondered if we were too late. We expected to see great herds. But we spotted only a few bulls which travel alone or in twos and threes.
Turns out, it's not so easy to find a few hundred elephants hiding in plain sight. Mike Fay searched by air for days. On the ground, the 60 Minutes team followed their trail. But elephant tracks in the mud are the worst potholes you can imagine.
After a week of this search, a major storm closed in on Fay's plane. At the last minute, he spotted what's rare even in Africa. "We've got about a hundred elephants here. One hundred elephants. And I'm gonna give you a position: 10 degrees, 58 minutes, 11 seconds. And 19 degrees, 51 minutes, zero one seconds," Fay radioed.
"We'll head to that coordinate and we'll contact you when we arrive," Pelley radioed back.
Fay landed ahead of the storm, and the 60 Minutes team ducked under it. A short time later, the rains cleared and we found them
There were more elephants than Fay had estimated -- when elephants huddle in herds this large, it's because they understand there's danger near.
"It's an astonishing sight to be nearly surrounded by this many elephants…there's about 200 of them. Most of them are gonna be females because they are leading the baby elephants through this forage. There are some elephants that I would take to be under two years old, maybe one-year-old and they are arrayed all around us," Pelley said, standing near the herd.
At sunset, the herd was about to move on.
The old matriarch was leading her elephants out of the protective boundaries of the refuge and into the wider savannah now turning green under the rains. The poachers know these seasons too and they're waiting.
Produced By Solly Granatstein and Jenny Dubin
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