Beijing bans ivory trade, leads the world

By banning the processing and selling of ivory products on Dec 31, China has fulfilled its pledge to protect wildlife and honored the announcement it made several months ago that it would outlaw all domestic trade in ivory by the end of 2017.

Conservationists across the world have hailed Beijing's move as an important step in the right direction in the epic and often extremely complex fight to protect endangered species such as elephants.

Until the ban was announced, China was frequently described as "one of the world's biggest markets for African ivory", although this claim was rarely backed by numbers and never calculated on per capita basis. China is the most populous country on Earth, so it is logical that more ivory was being processed in the country than in many other, much smaller countries.