The elephant population of Tanzania went down from 109,051 to 43,330 in five years, as a result of large-scale killings of the animals, backed by Glan.
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The three suspects allegedly committed the crime between January 1, 2000 and May 22, 2014. That demand has driven low-level poachers across the continent to massacre elephant and rhino populations.
Yang Fenglan, the head of the China-Africa Business Council in Tanzania, is accused of running an ivory-smuggling network. If found guilty on all charges, Yang could face 20 to 30 years imprisonment.
Businesswoman Yang Feng Glan, 66, known as the ‘Ivory Queen, was charged Wednesday before Magistrate Renatus Lutatinisibwa alongside two Tanzanian men in Dar es Salaam. In 1800, there were an estimated 26 million of them in Africa, according to National Geographic.
Tanzania has been largely in denial about the crisis, and anyone reporting on it has been threatened, she said. There are only around 470,000 elephants left in Africa, with nearly 35,000 killed every year.
In June, the US destroyed over a ton of elephant ivory in New York City’s Times Square to send a warning message to poachers and traders around the world.
A specialized wildlife trafficking unit under Tanzania’s National and Transnational Serious Crimes Investigation Unit (NTSCIU) arrested a number of high-level Chinese ivory traffickers led by a woman who is now thought to be the most notorious ivory trafficker brought to task so far in the war against elephant poaching. While this was hailed as a significant step, a few critics argued that it might not be enough, as many Chinese people still see ivory ornaments as status symbols.
According to the Elephant Action League, she has already admitted to string of offences.
“It’s a very important arrest, the most important in Africa in recent years”, Andrea Crosta, Elephant Action League Executive Director said.
“A slaughter of industrial proportion such as this can not have happened without the involvement of high-profile, corrupt individuals and government officials at the two ports of Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar, and elsewhere in civil society”, it said.
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“We believe that it is the common responsibility of all countries to protect endangered wild species, including elephants, and the worldwide community needs to tackle the problem with concerted efforts”.
