Until the US government's decision early last week, it had for the past few years restricted ivory trade in the USA as part of its contribution to the fight against killings of elephants in most African countries.
It's latest move comes at a time when Tanzania, which was one of the most hard-hit countries by poaching, is presently locked in a war against the vice.
It initially lost its war against poaching on account of numerous factors that had included, among others, abolition by the government of the retention scheme that had been introduced in the Selous Game Reserve.
For instance, in 1976, Selous had 110,000 elephants, but by 2014, the population in been decimated to 15,000!
Killing of elephants in most African countries and in the Selous in particular, has for years been fueled by growing demand for ivory products in the Far East countries.
What has exacerbated killing of elephants is the increase in demand for ivory products by the growing middle class in China, Vietnam and Thailand.
In the three countries, ivory has been transformed into an industry that is driven largely by booming middle class, in which some people covet ivory ornaments as a status symbol.
According to wildlife conservation groups, the Far East countries have encouraged the slaughter of some 30,000 African elephants a year.
And most of the slaughter took place in Selous Game Reserve.
The US government's decision to ban ivory trade in the country is however, not new.
It would, however, help in the long run to set a new, very encouraging development in the fight against poaching.
For instance, according to investigations conducted by the National Geographic Society, in 1989 the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES), banned the global ivory trade.
And when an experiment allowed Japan to buy 55 tons of ivory legally in 1999, the resulting rise in smuggling caused China to consider the Japan experiment a failure.
But just a few years later, China began lobbying to be allowed to do the same thing, namely, to buy a limited amount of ivory to sell, in a tightly controlled market, domestically.
The country lobbied hard, and in 2008, CITES granted Beijing the request. That year, China bought, legally, 73 tons of ivory from Africa and at about that time, it also built the world's largest ivory-carving factory and began opening shops to sell artifacts.
As if that was not bad enough, the Chinese government would add ivory carving to its official register of Intangible Cultural Heritage, all in an attempt to further legitimise the industry.
Later the 'National Geographic' investigators went into some of China's carving factories in 2012 and discovered, in the process, how China's actions were promoting the legal and illegal ivory trade.
Instead of keeping prices for ivory low, the China raised them, making ivory more profitable to poachers.
Meanwhile, Beijing's plan to assign legally carved ivory products photo IDs backfired,the photos are so small that an ID used to identify a legal piece of ivory could easily be attached to an illegal one to legitimise it.
The photos were so small that it was hard to tell whether the piece in the photo was the same one being sold.
In short, China's internal ivory control systems have failed, hence increasing threat to the survival of elephants in Africa and Tanzania in particular.
Going by the foregoing narrative, China now holds the key to the continued existence of elephants in Africa.
And the only way to that is for China to do exactly what the US government did early last week--ban ivory trade in China.
Of course, given the manner with which the Chinese government had allowed trade in ivory to flourish in its country, it is going to be extremely difficult to undo what it has for decades done.
But the US government had faced similar problems in the past before it finally succeeded to do what it did last week.
The US government is reported to have for years faced opposition from one of the most powerful lobbying groups in that country, the National Rifle Association.
The association is said to have actively opposed the ivory trade ban in order to protect access to ivory-handled guns.
Historic decision
But the opposition finally failed, hence the US government's historic decision early last week.
The world is now waiting with bated breath for a move by China, which has repeatedly and rightly said (through its other past actions), that it was a friend of Africa--to ban ivory trade in that country and save continent's elephants.
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