when you have a global, uniform, and unequivocal prohibition on the tradin elepht ivory, a numberf thingsappened the pric for ivo dropped because the market dries up, and the market dries up because it becomes taboo to have this illegal product. and when the market dries up, there's a disincentive to poach elephants and kill them for the ivory. narrator: after the cites ban, elephant populations began to stabilize. thornton: and everyone said there's elephant babies everywhere. and it was like a genuine miracle, where the dramatic decline of these magnificent animals was stopped. roberts: but what happened after that was that southern african governments, namely botswana, namibia, and zimbabwe put incredible pressure on cites parties to reopen a quote/unquote limited ivory ade, alling stocile sale from stockpiles in those three african governments to one approved trading partner, japan. thornton: that trade from the southern african countries to japan started to lead to an increasen poachi again. narrator: in a controversial move in 2008, cites authorized a second sale of stockpiled ivory to jap