The Ivory Game

This proves that this type of film matters! Excellent story, well produced and beautifully filmed. China officially banned all forms of domestic ivory trade on December 31, 2017, sending a clear signal to global wildlife crime groups that peddling ivory in China would carry serious legal consequences and social costs. China's historic ban has significantly reduced ivory sales, but one consumer group-people who regularly travel outside China-have the highest intention of continuing to purchase elephant ivory post-ban. These magnificent animals need our protection! I like the new methods of using beehives to help farmers protect their crops. Sandi Jerome.

The documentary explores operations of poachers in Africa and further trafficking of illegal ivory to Asia where it is sold to local wholesalers who subsequently can deliver it to your doorstep a 'nominal' fee. The undercover footage gives the documentary great validity and evidential basis. Must be watched - thought-provoking and horrifyingly real.

First of all, this is a very well made documentary and you can notice that from the first shot. Directors Kief Davidson and Richard Ladkani have done a really great job in putting the pieces of ivory trade together in a very comprehensible narrative that exposes the whole circle of the game.

We get to know the whole infrastructure behind it, from local killers working for local dealers, to foreign dealers and (usually Chinese) wealthy buyers. The cinematography of it is breathtaking as we are taken to visit the natural habitat of Elephants in South East Africa and meet the people who try to protect them against all odds and overwhelmingly lack of resources. We get to know the enthusiastic wildlife conservationists working in Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and get to know their motivation for fighting poachers and the whole illegal network. We get to know the man behind Wildleaks - an organization that leak the information about that network and we go undercover with them to meetings with dealers in China.

The whole documentary feels like a first class thriller with chase footage of the poachers and undercover agents risking their lives to expose the wide network, except this one is a reality.

Although one small minus for me was that not enough (in my opinion) was said about how complex,intelligent and emotional animals Elephants are. I mean they can paint, they visit spots where their members were killed or died and mourn the dead bones together, which we could consider as a form of ritual. They are able to use tools (although on lower level than chimps). Together with dolphins and apes they exhibit forms of self-recognition and they have an excellent memory.

Although elephants also cause some problems to people, especially in Asia where urbanization and human population claimed a lot of their natural habitats, the massive genocide of elephants for their ivory is a sign of something much larger than just ivory black market. It's a sign of expansion of human destructive relationship to our natural environment. We don't respect the nature as is documented by the global warming, and we don't give a sh*t about animals as they're mostly seen only as a necessary decoration of ever-shrinking wild nature.

I think this is a symbol of our addiction to power. We want to prove ourselves that we are the Gods and rulers of this planet and due to that addiction we are about to see some nasty results of that urge. Like there will be no elephants on the planet in few decades to come and more and more wild life territories will be sacrificed, so we will only know about the diversity of life from the history books. What kind of psychological effect will that have on future generation we can only speculate.

Maybe it's just me getting older and more melancholy or emotional but I think that after decades of watching 'Man's inhumanity to Man', for the last 20 years or so I've been waatching 'Man's Cruelty to Animals, in this particular case, The Elephant. This docu in which Actor-Conservationist Leonardo Di Caprio has a hand, along with many authorities from Africa, Hong Cong, USA, China including Andrea Crosta, Richard Leakey, Ian Stevenson and from the UK, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge. Elephants butchered in their hundreds by poachers who want the almost priceless tusks which are eventually sold onto the Chinese Illegal Markets and turned into various trinkets and items, many for tourists and the really pricey ones sold to collectors. It will be a 'Kleenex' job watching this for most. "The" Mr Big, a guy named Boniface Mariango aka Shetani is the prize that these braver - than - brave soldiers, animal protectors, conservationists all want to capture. I won't spoil it with the result. Personally, I would prefer that ALL the people in authority who take bribes leading down to the actual poachers who cause and oversee this destruction of ALL and ANY animals to gain a few hundred dollars but often much less, were introduced to one of the cartridges of the AK47's they use and THEIR carcasses left on the savannah.

Every once in a while a documentary comes along that can make a difference, Hello Orcas, thanks Blackfish.

The extermination of elephants, in such cruel way has only one people responsible, the Chinese. In China Ivory is a status luxury item, rich people loves it, and the president himself did not commit to an end of barbarities, like a good criminal politician, he said that someday in the future China will end its Ivory trade, meanwhile China continues to execute Elephants, 1 every 15 minutes

It is their crazy thirst for Ivory that has made this holocaust possible, the Chinese will deprive future generations of the beauty of this majestic and intelligent animal.

Yes, the killers are gangs of ignorant people led by unscrupulous monsters executing orders from the Chinese elite behind this lucrative trade.

The cruelty of the Chinese is difficult to measure, Rhino, Tigers, Bears, Elephants, anything that can be sold for exorbitant prizes will be killed for profit, they just don't care.

Ask yourselves why the Chinese government doesn't stop the trade, don't do anything to smugglers and let this happen?

It's their business too! The more animals they assassinate, the higher the profit is, and don't let people lie to you, in China Ivory sells everywhere, they know what they are doing, but money taste better

Government officials are involved, its widely known, in Hong Kong they bought some time, they want to kill and trade with animals until around 2022, so they will have time to prepare alternative channels

The Chinese became rich and began destroying the world, they could have chosen the opposite, but as with coal emissions, they just don't care.