Matt Picht
The US And World Took Key Steps For Animal Conservation In 2016
From species moving away from endangered status to key international agreements taking effect, 2016 was an important year for animal conservation.
LEARN MOREPosted: 9:08 p.m. EST Dec 30, 2016
China's government says it's finally getting rid of the country's ivory trade once and for all.
The international ivory trade was banned in 1989, but China has one of the largest domestic markets left in the world. The country's now planning to phase out all ivory processing and sales by the end of 2017.
That's important for conservationists because legal ivory markets often fuel demand for poaching and the illegal ivory trade.
And poaching is still devastating elephant populations in Africa. The Great Elephant Census estimated the African elephant population dropped 30 percent from 2007 to 2014, to around 350,000 elephants.
Similar blanket bans on ivory trading were adopted this year by the U.S. and Hong Kong, two major markets for legal and illegal ivory trade.
