Chinese Desire For Ivory and the Devastating Effect This Has Thrust Upon Africa

China is one of the only countries in which recently acquired ivory can be sold legally, and because it is in such high demand, China’s insatiable thirst for ivory is devastating elephant populations around the world. 80% of the Chinese middle class own one or more pieces of ivory and 84% of those people intend to purchase more in the future. Trade between Africa and China between 2003 and 2013 has jumped from $6,000,000,000 ($6 billion) to over $100,000,000,000 ($100 billion). China has been investing in Africa, building roads and shipping ports as a way to streamline the trading process. Some of the most popular goods traded include turtles which are eaten, shark fins which are also ingested, rhinoceros horn which is ground up and consumed, and elephant ivory which is carved into decorations. 60,000 shipping containers enter Chinese ports each day, with less than 1% being searched, making Chinese ports a smugglers paradise. Only 16% of ivory sold in China is legally traded and can be verified to have been sourced from legally acquired sources. Kenya has achieved success with elephant protection due to private philanthropy which funds the ability to patrol Kenyan parks via helicopter and land vehicles with armed security personnel, trained guards who have been authorized to shoot to kill when poachers have been identified actively poaching or attempting to poach

The Insatiable Demand for Chinese Silk and Illegally Exporting Silk into Europe

Historically recorded Chinese accounts by monastic Chinese scholars state that a handful of monks sent to China by the Roman emperor Justinian, smuggled silkworms out of China within the hollowed out shoots of bamboo canes and brought this cargo to Constantinople which is modern day Istanbul, Turkey so that the silk textile trade could be exported from China for the first time in recorded history. For over 2000 years Constantinople was considered the crossroads of the world, the nexus at which the west and east converged. Silk soon took off as one of the most in demand and profitable industries within Istanbul’s long and fascinating history. It should be noted that these accounts are thought by many scholars to be a work of fiction