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Luan Yanjun, dressed in his blue work uniform, is ready to show off the workshop where he works. His colleagues are sitting before desks, chiseling and filing. A thin layer of chalk-like dust covers some desks and Luan's uniform is lightly dusted as well. However, the dust is not as prone to stick to clothing as chalk dust.
Luan and his coworkers of the Beijing Ivory Carving Factory are carving ivory obtained through legal channel.
Set up in 1958, the factory in central Beijing has inherited its style from China's imperial courts.
"When the Qing Dynasty collapsed (in 1911), craftsmen working for emperors were dismissed, bringing their techniques to the civilian world," said Luan, 59.
A global ivory trade ban was adopted in 1989 and China joined the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in 1990. However, legal tusks still exist due to previously brokered deals.
Japan became the first legal buyer of tusks in 1997, when CITES allowed the sale of 49 tonnes of ivory from Zimbabwe, Namibia and Botswana to Japan. A more recent sale in 2008 of 108 tonnes from the three countries and South Africa went to Japan and China. China got 64 tonnes, as it has faced a severe ivory shortage since 1990.
"The 64 tonnes of tusks can secure our jobs for more than ten years with a quota system designed to dish out a certain amount annually," Luan estimated.
**ups and downs **
The ups and downs of the 55-year-old factory mirrors the trajectory of the global ivory trade.
The factory hit its peak in 1978 with about 800 workers. At that time, ivory products were not only gifts presented by the Chinese government to other countries, but also a vehicle that allowed China to earn foreign currency. The sector began to shrink from 1989 on.
"Now the factory has less than 30 craftsmen. The latest move to expand was made in 2008, when we recruited seven students," Luan said, adding that there are no plans to expand further in the near future.
"Despite this, we are still the biggest plant in terms of our number of craftsmen," Luan said. He estimated that there may be less than 600 such craftsmen in China.
"The Chinese economy is huge now and ivory carving is diminutive in terms of profit making. The sector survives only for the sake of intangible cultural heritage preservation," he said.
Ivory was used for billiard balls, piano keys, Scottish bagpipes, buttons and a wide range of ornamental items before the introduction of plastics.
In China, ivory ornaments and tools dating back 7,000 years have been found. Ivory carving boomed as a mature art in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), according to the China Wildlife Conservation Association (CWCA).
Ivory carving was classified as a form of national intangible cultural heritage in 2007 after China joined the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2004.
"They believe ivory is linked with nobility, officialdom or capacity to avoid evil and incur prosperity. Only emperors and very powerful people owned ivory in the past," said Xiao Guangyi, board chairman of the factory, when explaining why ivory appeals to his clients.
In a museum on the factory's second floor, there are some finished works, including flowers, cranes, deities and Buddhist sutras, echoing the same traditional art style found in older paintings.
Fight against illegal ivoy:"ID card" suggests "green" tusk
In front of every finished product, there is an ID card carrying information regarding the product's appearance, size and digital code, which can be used to obtain further information from an online database.
Such a card is the only way to prove an ivory product is legal and should always be carried when selling or transporting ivory, said Jin Yu, a researcher with the State Forestry Administration Detecting Center of Wildlife.
"The ID card, which was promoted in 2003, helps police and other law enforcers to crack down on illegal ivory. Any trade that is conducted without such a certificate can be identified as illegal," Jin said.
The cards are part of a certification system launched in China to identify legally sold ivory.
"We introduced an information control system following the CITES standards to monitor ivory stockpiles, consumption and products," Jin said. The center is based in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang province.
"Ivory products from legal stockpiles auctioned in 2008 are not allowed to go outside of China," Jin added.
Following China's 1989 wildlife protection law, specified regulations for ivory management were launched in 2003, making it possible to step up the fight against illegal ivory trading, said Cao Yang from the CWCA.
Xiao dismissed criticism regarding ivory price hikes, saying that prices for common ivory products, like bracelets, necklaces or chopsticks, have been stable and that only ivory artwork has become expensive, as it is priced by collectors.
Jin said he disagreed with opinions that legal trade of ivory could unnecessarily raise consumers' appetites.
"Actually, ivory products do not sell well. There is no strained supply-demand relationship in our monitoring system. To put it simply, we all know friends who own gold or jade jewelry, but do you know any one who is desperate for ivory?" Jin said.
Cao said many people have asked him why the Chinese use ivory for carving. "It's a traditional Chinese aesthetic favor for mild luster and fine texture from things like jade and lacquerware," Cao said.
All those interviewed admitted that ivory smuggling should be further cracked down upon, urging better efforts to improve public awareness of illegal ivory.
China seized ivory estimated to weigh more than 23 tonnes, representing 2,500 elephants, in the 13 largest seizures of illegal ivory in 2011, according to figures from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
In the eyes of Luan, the texture of the tusks falls somewhere between "rare wood" and jade.
"Tusks have growth rings like wood, but are more pliable and tougher than wood. Meanwhile, tusk is also softer than jade and can be easily worked on with carpenter's tools," Luan said.
"You can produce something as delicate as an eyelash with ivory and Shoushan stone, but not with wood or jade," Luan said.
In the workshop, the white chalk-like dust isn't annoying to the craftsmen at all.
"When we hurt ourselves at work with an electric drill, we just snatch some up and put it on the wound. Soon, it stops bleeding," said 25-year-old Guo Chen, a young craftsman recruited in 2008.
"When I first got the job three years ago, many of my friends were surprised and thought I was carving illegal ivory obtained through poaching. It took me time to explain that I'm working on 'green' tusks instead of illegal ones," said Guo.
"I agree that more efforts should be made to crack down on smuggling and encourage the public to stay away from illegal ivory. But it would be too extreme to bury or burn the tusks of elephants who have died naturally or are being culled," Guo said.
