On April 27^th, 2009, officials of IWMC visited China meeting with CACA. Secretary-general of China Arts & Crafts Association Wang Shan, Deputy Secretary-general of China Arts & Crafts Association Chen Jing, President of IWMC Mr. Eugene Lappointe and IWMC President for Europe & European Parliament Mr. Marco Pani attended this meeting.

First of all, Mr. Eugene Lappointe and Mr. Marco Pani learned about the supervisory system of ivory raw materials and products. They also asked about supervision and distribution of China’s import ivory raw materials in 2008. They thought that China did a good job in protecting the elephants and in perfecting the supervisory system of ivory raw materials and products, and China should give a hand to other African countries on guiding them in order to protect the elephants all together.

Later on, Mr. Eugene Lappointe and Mr. Marco Pani introduced to CACA about the current situation of elephant protection. Because of international attention on elephant protection in recent years, the quantity of elephants continued to grow. Due to increase of elephants and ivory storage, the three African countries, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia, will propose to CITES of taking ivory from Appendix I to Appendix II. This procedure would help them export part of the ivory and they could use profit to protect elephants. They hoped to gain support and help from China and Japan. IWMC would further help these three countries on improving the supervisory system of ivory products, perfecting management process and etc. They would like China take part of the responsibility of international ivory protection and together with other parts contribute to ivory protection.

On the second day, Mr. Eugene Lappointe and Mr. Marco Pani visited some ivory sales enterprises in Beijing Curio City in order to know more about China’s experience in ivory protection and ivory trade management.