"Weaning Itself From Elephant Ivory, China Turns to Mammoths"

NYT:

To sustain a carving and collecting tradition that is centuries old, many Chinese artisans have turned not to ivory from elephants but from the tusks of extinct mammoths harvested from an unlikely place: the melting permafrost of Russia’s Arctic.

While mammoth ivory has been promoted as an ethical alternative, since it does not come from the poaching of live animals, some conservationists argue that the booming trade in it fuels demand for ivory in general. And the mammoth ivory industry, they say, could end up providing legal cover for the black-market trade in elephant ivory.