That phrase reminds me of the number of square miles of rain forest being cleared in Brazil. It's very measurable but will likely not reflect reality. Just like Brazil deforestation, the calculated rate of demise will reach 0 long before the reality.
50,000 elephants’ worth of ivory is how much ivory? Where is it going? I know it sure isn’t becoming piano keys.
I wonder if our scientists can come out of their, er, “ivory towers” and figure out how to get the world more ivory without reducing the world population of elephants.
Don’t you know that we are always just 10 years away from any given disaster unless huge sums of money are spent on “research”.