Earlier this week in Guangzhou, Chinese authorities publicly burned six tonnes of seized ivory, along with a number of other wildlife products, to raise awareness about the devastating illegal wildlife trade and widespread poaching of elephants, particularly in Africa.

When the ivory trade last threatened the survival of Africa’s elephants, Kenya burned 12 tonnes of stockpiled ivory and launched a movement that culminated in the 1989 ban on international trade in ivory. For the next two decades most of Africa’s elephants were spared the poachers’ bullets.

This burning by a leading ivory-consuming country could ignite a new movement to save elephants from the threat of a trade that is in many ways more dangerous than before.

Since the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) began regulating trade in endangered plants and animals—in an effort to protect both—in 1975, “regulated” trade in legal ivory has proven disastrous for elephants.

Between 1975 and 1989, half of Africa’s elephants were estimated to be lost. While elephant numbers in many populations rose and stabilised in the decades after the ban, a fateful decision by CITES to allow two “regulated” sales of stockpiled African ivory to Asia, the last one to Japan and China in 2008, helped to revive the dormant ivory markets.

Today, skyrocketing demand for ivory has outstripped the legal ivory supply and once again sent African elephant populations into a tailspin. In China, demographics and economics have combined to create a surging market for status purchases.

Ivory traffickers continue to do what they always have, commissioning elephant poachers and laundering their illegal product under cover of the legal ivory trade. Greater Chinese investment and engagement in Africa have further facilitated ivory trafficking, as numerous ocean and air “highways” between Africa and China speed illegal wildlife products to black markets.

Though Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and especially the United States are all important ivory markets, there is little doubt that China is the major source of demand. As such, the country has an opportunity to play a major part in the solution.

The 1989 ivory ban was not widely publicised in China, and the public is still largely unaware of the devastation that ivory trade has inflicted—and continues to inflict—on elephants.

In a 2012 poll conducted by our organisations in China, only 50 per cent of the public was aware of the poaching crisis. Yet once the facts were explained, 95 per cent said they would support a ban on ivory. This underscores the important role that education and public awareness have to play in helping to resolve the crisis.

It’s for this reason that we have partnered with Chinese celebrities to raise awareness and reduce ivory demand, including former NBA star Yao Ming and leading actress Li Bingbing. Both have visited Africa and seen the bloody cost of owning ivory for themselves.

Their message—"When the buying stops, the killing can too”—is being shared across state media, popular talk shows, social media, and billboards at bus stops, airports, and subway stations.

But public awareness need not be driven solely by celebrities. Last year, China’s State Forestry Administration sent text messages to Chinese citizens travelling abroad, reminding them not to buy ivory. This is the same government agency now organising the ivory burn in Guangzhou.

It’s clear that China is taking greater steps to stop the slaughter of elephants in Africa. Now this nation, along with the other major ivory-consuming countries — the US included — has an opportunity to go one step further, by prioritising combatting, at the top levels of government, the multi-billion dollar illegal wildlife trade and by initiating an immediate ban on all ivory sales.

This will remove the “legal” blanket under which traffickers and criminal syndicates hide.

We understand that for China to ban all trade in ivory would be a large undertaking. It would also be a courageous one. China, as the world’s largest ivory market, now has an opportunity to play the lead role in the salvation of the elephant.

Peter Knights is the executive director, WildAid; Dr Iain Douglas-Hamilton is the founder, Save the Elephants and Patrick Bergin is the CEO, African Wildlife Foundation