The auction site's ban on elephant products won't help the environment.

Most of the ivory that was being sold on eBay may not have been illegal at all. A good deal of ivory in the country simply predates the 1989 ban, and interstate sale of ivory is not tightly regulated or monitored. As for imports, residents can bring in licensed hunting trophies for personal use or antique ivory items more than 100 years old. The IFAW report on eBay simply identified certain auctions as "likely violations" or "possible violations" of the law, based on the wording used in listings. According to the study, just 15.5 percent of ivory goods on the site fell into the "likely violation" category. Turn those figures around, and it's clear that eBay also supported a vibrant, legal ivory market.

The only way to improve this market is through transparency, and eBay was ideally suited to play such a role. Because the site maintains a database of every auction, the final sale price, and the parties involved, it could provide a valuable tool for law-enforcement officers and conservation organizations. With those data, it would be possible to track the volume of the ivory trade and help identify questionable buyers and sellers based on their transaction patterns. Once the market moves offline—and to classifieds sites such as Craigslist—this sort of monitoring will be largely impossible.

If eBay wanted to take a stand for conservation, it should have partnered with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service—and notified its users that any purchase or sale of wildlife products will be recorded in a government database. Add to this the eventual possibility of spot checks using DNA testing, and we'd be well on our way to a sustainable, digital marketplace. Given such a framework, ivory would regain its respectability, and it might even be possible to open our borders to the importation of newly worked ivory from registered sellers abroad. After two decades under the ban, it's finally time to admit that saving elephants requires pulling a few teeth.