A Chinese police officer watched over ivory products being prepared for destruction during a ceremony in Beijing in 2015. China’s ban announced on Friday would shut down the world’s largest domestic ivory market. Credit Ng Han Guan/Associated Press

China announced on Friday that it was banning all commerce in ivory by the end of 2017, a move that would shut down the world’s largest ivory market and could deal a critical blow to the practice of elephant poaching in Africa.

The decision by China follows years of growing international and domestic pressure and gives wildlife protection advocates hope that the threatened extinction of certain elephant populations in Africa can be averted.

“China’s announcement is a game changer for elephant conservation,” Carter Roberts, the president and chief executive of the World Wildlife Fund, said in a written statement. “With the United States also ending its domestic ivory trade earlier this year, two of the largest ivory markets have taken action that will reverberate around the world.”

Read full story here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/30/world/asia/china-ivory-ban-elephants.html?_r=0