Ivory Legally Replaced by Mammoth Tusks  

Intangible Cultural Heritage of Ivory Carving can be Inherited

 

 

With the unceasing destruction of natural environmental resources and the sharp decline of the population of wild elephants, the 1989 International Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora officially implemented a comprehensive ban on international trade in African ivory and its products. Since the raw materials of ivory carving mainly come from African ivory,   "African Ivory Ban " led to the closure of many ivory processing factories. Hence, a lot of young apprentices changed their jobs and the craft of ivory carving is difficult to be inherited, which is simply a catastrophic blow for the ivory carving industry. In order to continue this traditional handicraft, artists began to look for alternative materials. Mammoths are extinct animals that originated from 10,000 to 1 million years ago. Each Mammoth has a pair of long and upcurved tusks, known to scientists as mammoth tusks. Mammoth Tusk is a real antique and can be legally imported and exported. Compared with modern ivory, the degree of hardness and density is higher than that in the modern ivory, so it can completely replace ivory to continue the national intangible cultural heritage of tusk carving art that has existed for thousands of years!

 

In addition, renowned US geographist Esmond Martin and zoologist Lucy Vigne, who specialize in ivory studies, jointly published a report of more than 30 pages in 2016 in the wildlife conservation organizations “WildAid” and “Save The Elephants”. In which it is mentioned that mammoth tusks have been used for carving for a long long time. Until CITES banned the international trade of commercial ivory materials in 1990, mammoth tusks became the first choice for artists of ivory carving.