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China Says It Will Shut Down Ivory Trade By End of 2017 (go.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ABC News: China says it plans to shut down its ivory trade by the end of 2017 in a move designed to curb the mass slaughter of African elephants. The Chinese government will end the processing and selling of ivory and ivory products by the end of March as it phases out the legal trade, according to a statement released on Friday. China had previously announced it planned to shut down the commercial trade, which conservationists described as significant because China's vast, increasingly affluent consumer market drives much of the elephant poaching across Africa. China, which has supported an ivory-carving industry as part of its cultural heritage, said carvers will be encouraged to change their activities and work, for example, in the restoration of artifacts for museums. More efforts will be made to stop the illegal trade, the statement said. China has allowed trade in ivory acquired before a 1989 ban on the ivory trade by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, which seeks to regulate the multi-billion-dollar trade in wild animals and plants. The number of Africa's savannah elephants dropped by about 30 percent from 2007 to 2014, to 352,000, because of poaching, according to a study published this year. Forest elephants, which are more difficult to count, are also under severe threat.
As someone who lived in China, those posters did jack shit to raise awareness, it was beloved basketball star Yao Ming on TV telling people about the problem that finally raised awareness.
While written with snarky vitriol, your point has merit. The problem is mostly that the populace in China is uneducated and extremely poor, meaning belief in magic and magical cures is still rampant. An educated society is dangerous, so don't look for this to change any time soon.
The uneducated and extremely poor receive adulterated concoctions containing little if any of the very expensive raw materials they claim to have. The trade in black market materials for traditional medicine didn't explode because China got poorer but because it got wealthier. Westerner's spend Billions a year in "alternative medicine," like supplements which at best are doing little and at worst are actually harming. The Chinese are not that different in trying to cling to hope when the Medical Community offers little