Matt Sorum's open letter on ivory trade

To my fellow musicians, fans and animal lovers, The steady beat of a drum reminds me of elephants marching through the African savanna.

Now imagine silence. That is all the music we’ll hear if the African elephant is forced into extinction.

The species is in crisis, despite worldwide efforts to ensure they do not disappear. The population in Africa has crashed 95 percent in the last century, and about 35,000 are being killed by poachers every year. One slaughtered elephant is bad enough. Elephants are among the most intelligent, social and biologically important animals on the planet, but poachers are killing one on average every fifteen minutes. Scientists are talking about the possibility of regional extinctions in the next decade, which is about the saddest thing I can imagine.

The United States is doing its part to help. Recently, the White House introduced new rules that make it illegal to sell ivory without a permit. As a musician, you might be the owner of an old piano, violin bow, or inlaid guitar, which may include ivory. Now, under these new regulations, you can still keep the instrument – you just can’t sell it without replacing those ivory bits first. Sure, it’s a pain if these rules knock down the value of your property. They also could mean the difference between saving African elephants or watching them disappear off the face of the earth.

The purpose of these new rules is to make sure that nobody in the U.S. is dealing ivory that came from a recently poached elephant. There’s no perfect way to do this. But right now this is the best we can do. If you still want to sell an antique instrument with ivory –made before the elephant poaching epidemic began-, you need some proof that it was made and imported when you say it is.

I’ve been involved in conservation work for years and I am telling you, this is an issue that needs the attention and support of the music community. We need to be a part of the solution, not the problem. As much as we all love our instruments, they are in the end just things – not worth contributing to the demise of a species.

I encourage you to take action. Join the International Fund for Animal Welfare in urging President Obama to stand strong for elephants by ensuring that the United States ivory market will no longer contribute to the elephant poaching crisis.

We’re talking about the fate of a species here. When you look at it that way, it’s hard to argue that an instrument is worth more.

A world without elephants is anything but music to my ears. A small but important sacrifice made now could mean everything for these animals, so please join me in supporting the new rules and spreading the word about this important issue.

Sincerely, Matt Sorum