Twelve tonnes of ivory, valued at more than three million United States (US) dollars, were incinerated in Nairobi's National Park on Tuesday as a symbolic gesture of Kenya's commitment to safeguarding the African elephant.
The event was presided over by Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi, who emphasized the imperative need to cease poaching, trading, and purchasing ivory to avert the extinction of elephants. He fervently called on the "people of the world" to refrain from buying ivory and join Kenya's mission to eradicate the ivory trade once and for all. Moi asserted that ivory buyers were indirectly supporting the needless and illicit killing of elephants.
The majority of the burnt ivory had been confiscated from poachers over the past five years.
Moi further announced that Kenya would imminently dispose of 270 rhinoceros horns, a rare species also at risk due to poachers who market their horns for purported medicinal uses, primarily in Asia.
Over the preceding decade, Kenya had witnessed a drastic decline in its elephant population, plummeting from 65,000 to approximately 15,000. Concurrently, the continent's overall elephant population had diminished to 750,000 and was diminishing at a rate of 70,000 each year.
During the last two decades, ivory prices had tripled to around 200 US dollars per kilogram. Poaching gangs, armed with automatic rifles and chainsaws, constituted the initial phase in this multi-million-dollar international enterprise.
Kenya, with the backing of neighboring Tanzania, had lobbied the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species to outlaw ivory trading during the organization's meeting in Switzerland in October.
While the European Community and the United States had expressed their support for the initiative, it faced opposition from southern African states who contended that they had effectively curbed poaching and relied on the revenue generated from legal ivory trade.
