9th March 2015 President Uhuru Kenyatta is dead serious about his fight against wildlife poaching, and especially preserving the elephants in his country, estimated to be about thirty thousand. To demonstrate this seriousness, he recently set fire to about 15 tonnes of elephant ivory. One ivory or elephant tusk is valued at about two thousand dollars via black market, we’ll leave you to do the math. Kenya’s action of burning the tusks makes history as the largest consignment to be destroyed in Kenya.
At the ceremony in Kenya’s Nairobi national park, President Kenyatta is quoted as saying “Many of these tusks belonged to elephants which were wantonly slaughtered by criminals”
The president added that “Twenty-five years after the historic banning of the ivory trade, demand from the emerging markets once again threatens Africa’s elephants and rhinos; the burning of the ivory was to show that wildlife trophies must be put beyond economic use. We want future generations of Kenyans, Africans and indeed the entire world to experience the majesty and beauty of these magnificent animals. Poachers and their enablers will not have the last word in Kenya.”
Now this huge stack of tusks isn’t the all that has been seized, and the President has promised that more will be burnt in the course of the year. Poaching and smuggling continue to be a major concern for many countries in East and South Africa, with conservationists warning that elephants could be wiped out in some parts of Africa in the next few years.