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Synthetic ivory fails to stop illegal trade

Nature volume 507, page 40 (2014) Cite this article

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Synthetic ivory can now be crafted to the same diagnostic standards as genuine ivory (see M. E. Sims et al. Ethnobiol. Lett. 2, 40–44; 2011), and its price in China is only about 14% of that of real ivory. First manufactured in 1865 to save elephants' tusks from being turned into billiard balls (US patent 50359), synthetic ivory is not proving to be the panacea hoped for by conservationists and Chinese enforcement agencies.

Because synthetic and authentic ivory are so similar, unscrupulous traders caught smuggling illegal ivory can claim that it is synthetic; they can also pass off synthetic ivory as genuine when they sell it. The situation may be aggravated by legitimate traders, because they are entitled to compensation if destructive sampling is carried out to conclusively distinguish real from synthetic ivory (H. G. M. Edwards and D. W. Farwell Spectrochim. Acta A 51, 2073–2081; 1995).

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  1. Yunnan Public Security Bureau for Forests, Kunming, China

    Zhao-Min Zhou

  2. On behalf of 4 co-signatories (see Supplementary Information for full list).,

    Zhao-Min Zhou

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  1. Zhao-Min Zhou
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Correspondence to Zhao-Min Zhou.

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Zhou, ZM. Synthetic ivory fails to stop illegal trade. Nature 507, 40 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/507040a

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