PHILIPPINES
National Geographic
National Geographic’s undercover investigation into how the global religious market for ivory is a driving force in the slaughter of thousands of African elephants has prompted extensive media coverage — and calls for an official inquiry — in the Philippines.
Bryan Christy reported in the October 2012 issue of National Geographic that he traveled to the Philippines to understand the country’s ivory trade and possibly get a lead on who was behind 5.4 tons of illegal ivory seized by customs agents in Manila in 2009, 7.7 tons seized there in 2005, and 6.1 tons bound for the Philippines seized by Taiwan in 2006. Assuming an average of 22 pounds of ivory per elephant, these seizures represent about 1,745 elephants, Christy wrote.
Christy met Monsignor Cristobal Garcia, a senior Catholic cleric and one of the best known ivory collectors in the Philippines, who told Christy that if he wanted to buy an ivory Santo Niño, a carving of the Christ child, he would have to smuggle it to get it into the U.S. “Wrap it in old, stinky underwear and pour ketchup on it,” Garcia said. “So it looks shitty with blood. This is how it is done.” International trade in elephant ivory has been banned for the last 22 years.
Read Bryan Christy’s article ‘Ivory Worship’.
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