For the domestic ivory ban to be effective, the Chinese government recognized in its announcement last year that it must ramp up enforcement and public education about the ban. 

Upon invitation by China's State Forestry Administration (SFA), NRDC developed a communications plan to educate the public about the ivory ban that became effective at the end of 2017 with the understanding that increased awareness will lead to increased compliance. We engaged WildAid, and Chinese local NGO China Wildlife Conservation Association and Society of Entrepreneurs and Ecology, to develop a series of print and video public service announcements that were distributed through various media outlets and channels including CCTV, which is accessible to over a billion viewers. The ivory public service announcements generated over 11 million views on Weibo within two days. CITES official Twitter and LinkedIn accounts also posted our video to ensure member countries received the message. China must be widely applauded for its actions to encourage similar future behavior, thus NRDC has pushed this information out through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, a blog, and an action alert, and encouraged celebrities and media channels to congratulate China through both U.S. and Chinese social media accounts. The Facebook account of China's CCTV English Channel (CGTN), which has over 54 million followers, posted NRDC's video and generated over 321K views. We have also used this opportunity to put additional pressure on places with large ivory markets that have not yet enacted ivory bans, such as the UK, Japan, and the EU.