Between 1970 and 1989, African elephant populations were halved as legal “regulated” trade in ivory enabled laundering of illegal ivory from poached elephants. In 1989 the Convention of the International Trade of Flora and Fauna (CITES) abandoned attempts at regulation and passed a ban on international trade in ivory.Though the 1989 ban was initially a great success - cutting ivory prices overnight, reducing poaching and allowing elephant populations to start to recover - the success was short-lived.The growth of newly affluent markets in Asia, predominantly in China, “one-off”sales of African stockpiles in 1999 (to Japan) and 2008 to China and Japan, in conjunction with the old problems of corruption, poor enforcement of regulations, and a lack of prosecutions allowed illegal markets to flourish, particularly in China.