The information contained within this book was originally developed for the wildlife law enforcement community in connection with its mandate to enforce international endangered species trade regulations and restrictions. Thousands of copies of previous editions of this guidebook have been distributed in three languages throughout the world. The goal is to provide wildlife law enforcement officers, scientists and managers with a visual and non-destructive means of tentatively identifying the authenticity and species origin of suspected ivory for enforcement purposes, including a “probable cause” justification for seizure of suspected illegal material, at ports of entry. Emphasis also remains on carved ivory, mostly because whole teeth are easily identified.

China-based technology to confirm species identity through a series of questions. It takes an extra step to outsource initially unidentifiable items to external scientists. If the product is identified as illegal by the user or external scientists, steps are taken to track down the product and trader/trafficker. The app was specifically developed to support forest police, customs officers, and others in the field to address trafficking across China.

App to combat illegal wildlife trade across Asia and West Africa. It was designed to help frontline enforcement agencies, private sector employees, and the general public correctly identify, report, and handle animals and plants frequently caught in the illegal wildlife trade. WildScan hosts a comprehensive library containing information on over 600 endangered species and illegal wildlife products. The app’s identification wizard component poses four simple questions to assist users in identifying the appropriate species. It is expanding to be used globally.

Software for “smoothed and continuous assignment tests” that combines genetic and statistical methods to determine the origin of poached ivory. The methods estimate geographic-specific allele frequencies over the entire African elephants’ range. These geographic-specific allele frequency estimates are used to infer the geographic origin of DNA samples.

An extension of the SCAT tools. It aims to determine the geographic origin(s) of large elephant ivory seizures using a Voronoi tessellation method that utilizes genetic similarities across tusks to simultaneously infer the origin of multiple samples that could have one or more origin(s).

Utilises stable isotope methods validated by researchers from WWF Germany and works with partners from the University of Regensburg who analyse radioactive isotopes to determine the age of ivory. Its website includes a free and readily accessible reference database of over 700 samples of ivory from African and Asian elephant range states, and was handed over to the international CITES community at COP 17 in 2016.