Kenya will host the biggest destruction of ivory in Africa’s history.
The ivory burning event will take place in Nairobi under the glare of the world’s media.
In an event expected to be attended by Hollywood actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Nicole Kidman along with several other celebrities,120 tonnes of ivory worth $270 million, will be set ablaze, the biggest to be burned by any country in one go.
Kenya will be hosting a major global summit on illegal poaching in April this year .The country will use the two-day event to set fire to its massive stockpile of ivory that has an estimated black market price of $270 million representing the death of around 4,000 elephants.
The ivory will include tusks seized from elephant poachers and from animals who died naturally. Several heads of state and governments, including high-powered representatives of Western nations and China will also attend the summit.
Across Africa, it is estimated that 30 – 35,000 elephants are being slaughtered annually. According to the most recent census carried out by the Wildlife Conservation Society, 65 percent of elephants from the Central African region were lost between 2002 and 2012. That’s an eradication rate of 9 percent a year. Time is against us.
This September at the Conference of the Parties to CITES (CoP17), which will take place in Johannesburg, crucial decisions concerning the future of the world’s remaining elephant populations will be made. With 181 parties, CITES is viewed by many as one of the world’s most important multilateral environmental agreements. Resolutions are binding on the parties and, importantly, are enforceable. Non-compliance can have serious repercussions for the countries involved.
