How extensive was the ivory trade before 1990, and how many elephants did it affect?
Before the 1990 listing of the African elephant on CITES Appendix I, combined legal and illegal ivory exports from Africa averaged 670 metric tons annually. In peak years, this was the equivalent of about 75,000 elephants, far more than the elephant populations could replace in a single year. Hong Kong and Japan were the largest importers of ivory from Africa, accounting for about 75 percent of total imports. The United States imported far more worked ivory products than raw ivory in the 1980s. In 1988, more than $20 million worth of commercial ivory products, mostly jewelry, entered the United States, primarily from Hong Kong.
