AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Ethiopia set fire to a 6-ton pile of seized elephant ivory, the country’s entire stock, vowing a zero-tolerance policy toward poachers and traffickers.
Burning the stock, which included huge tusks, elaborate carvings, necklaces and bracelets, came in March 2015, two weeks after neighboring Kenya took similar action aimed at demonstrating renewed commitment to protect Africa’s iconic but dwindling elephant population.
“The message we’re sending is that we have zero tolerance for poaching and illegal trafficking,” said Dawud Mume Ali, director of the Ethiopian Wildlife Conservation Authority.
“We are trying to save the elephants from extinction. This is part of that. We have to act rather than talk.”
Officials said the stock had been accumulated over the past 20 years and came from elephants slaughtered in Ethiopia or cargo seized at Addis Ababa’s international airport. It represented a black market value of roughly $12 million.
Ethiopia’s own elephant population has collapsed during that period, and the most recent estimate puts the population today at just 1,800 animals, with poaching driven mainly by demand in booming Asian economies, especially China. Some of the ivory burned included carvings of Buddha.
“From the 1980s, the elephant population in Ethiopia has decreased by 90 percent,” said Zeleke Tigabe of the African Wildlife Foundation. “The Ethiopian Wildlife Authority is trying to minimize illegal poaching, but much has to be done.”
Ian Craig of Stop Ivory said the aim of the ceremonial burnings was to devalue ivory publicly. “More and more African countries are recognizing that sitting on ivory stockpiles is not sitting on Fort Knox,” he said. “We want it to have no value. To be worthless. This is just a piece of a dead body. This is not a piece of art.”
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