Sick desire for ivory must be removed from people's hearts

ZHOU FEI, head of the Wildlife Trade Programme of the World Wildlife Fund China, called Sunday "a day to be inscribed into history" after a ban was introduced on the processing and selling of ivory and ivory products in China. China Daily writer Zhang Zhouxiang comments:

Doubtlessly it was a historic day, because the Chinese government has not only issued the ban, but also taken a series of steps to end the ivory trade in the country.

The State Forestry Administration had already ordered all previously legal ivory processing and trading companies to shut down by Sunday. From Monday on, it has established a permanent legal enforcement system together with other governmental departments, in order to strike at any link in the ivory trade chain that dare illegally continue commercial ivory activities after the ban.