Some 105 tonnes of ivory were burned at a national park outside the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Saturday in a dramatic gesture by the East African country, which is urging the international community to support calls for a total ban on the trade in ivory and other products from endangered wildlife species.
Also going up in flames was one tonne of rhinoceros horn, another mammal poached to near extinction.
“Our message is clear. Ivory is worthless unless it is on an elephant,” Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta, told a gathering at the Nairobi National Park, where he, accompanied by the President of Gabon, Ali Bongo, set alight pyres of ivory, amid a throng of dignitaries and media representatives from across the world.
“No one has any business trading in ivory. It means death to our national heritage … which cannot be sold for money,” said Mr. Kenyatta.
Heavy rainfall that pounded Nairobi in the morning paused at midday before the two presidents lit the bonfires. Soon plumes of smoke billowed into the overcast sky as fierce fuel-aided flames consumed the pyres, leaving a whiff similar to burning feather.
“To all poachers and ivory traders – your days are numbered,” said President Bongo. “The best thing you can now is go into retirement.”
Criticising those who would rather have confiscated ivory preserved instead of destroyed, renowned conservationist and chairman of the Kenya Wildlife Service Richard Leakey said such calls came from “speculators on an evil and illegal commodity. The represented a “shameful group,” he added.
Tongue in cheek, Leakey suggested the creation of an organization which, he said, would be known as “Kill All International Trade in Endangered Species (KAITES)”.
Kenyatta and Bongo said they would propose the imposition of a total ban on trade in ivory and rhino horn at the next gathering of parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which will be held in South Africa in September.
“This dramatic burn shouts out to the world that Kenya believes ivory should never be bought or sold,” said Resson Kantai Duff, Head of Awareness at Save the Elephants. “It is a symbolic memorial to all those that have been killed. We hope that this fire marks the beginning of the end of the ivory trade, and that from here on Africa’s ivory can stay where it belongs: on elephants.”
Kenya blazed the trail at burning confiscated ivory in a bid to ensure that the illicit commodity did not reach the global markets, mostly in the Far East, saying that availability stoked an insatiable demand that results in more elephants being poached.
The country had lost an estimated 90 per cent of its elephants in just 10 years between 1979 and 1989, with numbers falling from an estimated 168,000 to just 15,000 elephants. Then President Daniel arap Moi set alight some 2,000 contraband tusks in July 1989, sparking international pressure for a global ivory ban.
But after nearly two decades of declining elephant poaching in the wake of the ban on international ivory trade by CITES, an easing of the prohibition to allow a one-off sale of ivory in 2008 ignited fresh demand for ivory in Asia.
Poaching soared. The conservation organisation Save the Elephants reported that 100,000 elephants were killed for their ivory between 2010 and 2012.
Marco Lambartini, director of the international conservation organisation World Wide Fund (WWF), said the burning of the ivory tusks and rhino horn sent a “strong political message from the top. It is critical.”
Such gestures, however, needed to be complemented with stronger legislation against poaching and more stringent enforcement of the law, Mr. Lambardini told Swara magazine. It was also crucial to address the demand aspect of the ivory trade, especially in Asia, he added.
Esmond Bradley Martin, an expert on wildlife trade, said the elephant tusks that went up in smoke were from about 8,000 elephants and could fetch more than $105 million on the black market in Asia. The tonne of rhino horn, cut off from some 343 poached rhinoceros would be worth about $67 million.
