Speaking out against the poaching crisis gripping the continent, she praised the burn as a way of raising global awareness about the plight of elephants.
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Some 10 towering piles – or £68 million worth – of ivory was incinerated in Kenya’s Nairobi National Park today, in what was the largest ivory burn in history. “No one – and I repeat, no one – has any business in trading in ivory, for this trade means death [to] our elephants and death [to] our natural heritage”.
Some 100 tons of ivory were set ablaze by Kenyan authorities in a bid to combat wildlife trafficking and poaching.
The Kenyan government decided to make a statement about its stance on the illegal ivory trade on Saturday by seizing and burning 106 tonnes of ivory taken from elephant tusks and rhino horns. “Kenya is making a statement that for us ivory is worthless unless it is on our elephants”, he added.
Kenyatta no doubt felt that, considering the dire forecast – extinction – for Kenya’s elephants, a grand gesture was called for.
The tusks of about 8000 elephants and rhinoceros have gone up in smoke as a demonstration of Kenya’s commitment to stamp out all ivory trade, the country said. Rhino horn goes for 50 times that.
Kenya first burned ivory in 1989, under president Daniel Arap Moi.
There are between 450,000 and 500,000 elephants in Africa, but every year more than 30,000 are killed for their ivory, which is highly valued by Asian markets.
The Convention in International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) allows for the trade of ivory under certain circumstances, such as those ivory and horn that has been confiscated from illegal poachers. Tanzania has lost 65 percent of its elephant population in the past five years. Most of the remaining forest elephants are in Gabon and are under threat from armed groups, said Gabon’s President Ali Bongo Ondimba, who attended Saturday’s burning.
Gavin Shire of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) said Kenyan authorities need to ensure that the ivory is destroyed in a way that makes it unsuitable for the black market.
Much like the elephant, Kenya’s rhinos have dropped in number, from 20,000 four decades ago to nearly 650.
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The massive burn, which has made headlines around the world, is also aimed at another audience: People in countries who may be buying poached ivory products without knowing it was taken illegally.
