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Jared Leto: U.S. May Be The Second Largest Ivory Market After China

Jared Leto: U.S. May Be The Second Largest Ivory Market After China

Award-winning actor and World Wildlife Fund global ambassador Jared Leto is using his star power to pressure the U.S. to end its commercial ivory trade.

In a Time article co-written with World Wildlife Fund CEO Carter Roberts, Leto said the U.S. needs to follow China’s lead and phase out its domestic ivory trade, UPI reports.

Leto won Best Supporting Actor for his role as a transgender woman in the 2013 film, Dallas Buyers Club. Leto’s band, 30 Seconds To Mars, has earned critical and commercial success internationally.

“The U.S., surprisingly, has an ivory problem,” Leto wrote in a letter published June 16 in Time. “After China, the U.S. may be the second-largest market for wildlife products in the world, and investigations continue to uncover surprising volumes of ivory being sold in the U.S., much of it contraband.”

While commercial ivory imports have been banned in the U.S. for 25 years, “legal” ivory — including antiques containing ivory — have slipped through the cracks, the letter said. Lawmakers tried to seal those cracks and create further legislation to end to all ivory imports, but it’s not happening fast enough, the letter said.

In May, Chinese government officials said China will begin phasing out legal, domestic ivory sales and manufacturing, HuffingtonPost reported. Officials destroyed 1,500 pounds of confiscated elephant tusks and ivory carvings in Beijing to show their commitment.

This Friday, the U.S. will destroy a ton of ivory in Times Square — all of it illegal and all of it from dead elephants, Leto’s Time letter said.

“If China makes good on this promise, Africa’s elephants may actually have a fighting chance,” the letter said. “While the Chinese pivot toward zero ivory, the U.S. lags on this critical front in the fight to save elephants.”

This month, the conservation group Traffic found a catastrophic decline of elephants in Tanzania due to uncontrolled poaching, UPI reports. Tanzania’s elephant population, one of the largest in Africa, dropped 60 percent in five years, from 109,051 in 2009 to 43,330 in 2014.

“Our collective efforts don’t match the scale and speed of the calamity before us. Time is running out for elephants,” Leto said in the Time letter. “The grim reality is that until superpowers like the U.S. and China close their commercial ivory markets, and freshly poached ivory can no longer masquerade as something it’s not, the blood of Africa’s elephants will continue to stain our collective hands.”

Jared Leto. Photo: WorldWildlifeFund
Jared Leto. Photo: WorldWildlifeFund

Leto traveled to South Africa earlier this year with WWF to learn about wildlife crime and the rhino poaching crisis.

“My latest adventure in South Africa was as mind-blowing as always,” Leto said in a WorldWildlifeFund report.