New Zealand is one of increasingly few developed countries that still has a legal, open ivory market. Ivory from savagely murdered elephants and rhinos is funnelled through the country, keeping the global trade alive, and poachers in business. New Zealand’s previous Minister of Conservation refused to introduce a ban to stop the domestic sale of elephant ivory and rhino horn, but New Zealand's new Conservation Minister brings with her new opportunity! Act now to call on her to shut down New Zealand’s ivory trade and end the violent slaughter of elephants before they are driven to extinction!

International commercial trade in ivory has been banned since 1989, albeit with some disastrous loopholes. New Zealand’s reluctance to ban domestic trade is fuelling an unregulated, unmonitored, and highly lucrative ivory trade, with wildlife product seizures at the New Zealand border increasing each year. Both the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) have called on all nations to close their domestic ivory markets.

Almost 200 nations agreed to call for a complete shutdown of all legal domestic ivory markets at the CITES meeting last year. Hong Kong is exploring a domestic ivory trade ban while the US, China, and most recently the UK have actually committed to near-total bans on the ivory trade. Strong bans like these will protect African elephant populations which are hanging by a thread after years of aggressive poaching.

Only a worldwide effort will end this demand for meaningless ivory trinkets that are stained with blood, terrorism, violence, and imminent extinction. We now focus on New Zealand which must join the almost 200 nations around the world that have said NO to the ivory trade, and YES to protecting elephants and rhinos.

What You Can Do

Send our letter, by filling out the form on the right-hand side of this page, to New Zealand’s Minister of Conservation, Associate Minister for the Environment and Land Information, the Honourable Eugenie Sage, asking her to pass a domestic ivory ban for New Zealand.