President of Kenya ignited several tonnes of ivory stockpiled in the country since being seized in Singapore almost a decade ago. Photography: Tony Karumba/AFP/GettyPresident of Kenya has burned more than five tons of elephant Ivory worth r $ 10 million to draw attention to poaching deaths.
Mwai Kibaki was nearly burned as he lit the mound of 335 ivory tusks and 41,000 trinkets, which had been confiscated in Singapore.
"Through the Elimination of ivory smuggling, we seek to demonstrate formally to the world our determination to eliminate all forms of illegal trade in Ivory," Kibaki told several hundred people in a rural training centre Kenya Wildlife Service. "They all appreciate the negative effects of illegal trade in our national economies. We cannot stand idly by and allow criminal networks destroy our common future. "
Kenyan officials first burned a mound of Ivory in 1989, a desperate call to action to alert the world to a elephant poaching crisis that sent plummeting populations of Africa. Elephant numbers are now much healthier, but activists say that another elephant second crisis is coming middle class of China want to satisfy your appetite of ivory.
The group save the elephants elephant tracks worldwide news and headlines of newspapers cited last week which documented elephant related busts in Kenya, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
The Group's founder, Iain Douglas-Hamilton, said he hoped that people would see burn latest Ivory Kenya as another warning that elephants are again being hunted. He said that economic losses from burning Ivory was part of the message.
"This is a clear signal that it is worth a lot more money than you could obtain on the market. We must stop buying if we want to stop the killing, "he said as the ivory burned nearby. "I am not totally pessimistic. I think that the Chinese can be converted. "
A global ban on trade in Ivory in 1989 briefly interrupted disappearance of elephants. But the initial success of the ban has been harmed Asia growing demand and growing human-elephant conflicts as people encroach on land animals.
Africa has about 500,000 elephants, down from 1.3 million in the Decade of 1970. Kenya has 37,000 elephants, up to 16,000 had at the height of the crisis in 1989, but well below the peak of the country.
Burning Wednesday, although hosted by Kenya, was performed by the Lusaka Agreement Task Force, a group of seven African countries that work to protect the flora and fauna. A group member, Ephraim Kamuntu, Uganda's Minister of tourism, said that sent the signal that "the days of poachers are numbered".
Burnt ivory was confiscated by officials in Singapore in 2002. He was sent to Kenya, where DNA analysis determined that tusks originated in Malawi and Zambia.
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