As the Government of Kenya prepares to destroy a 106-tonne stockpile of ivory in a high-profile international event on April 30, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has hailed the move as a winning battle in a war on illegal ivory trade and poaching.
Tanzania’s Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Prof. Jumanne Maghembe recently told the US Ambassador to Tanzania Mark Childress that the country had no plans to destroy its ivory stockpile of 125 tonnes.
According to the minister the 34,000 pieces of ivory stockpiles worth black market price of over Sh460bn in China would instead be used for scientific research and as legal evidence in criminal cases against elephant poachers.
He was responding to the Ambassador’s suggestion to destroy part of the stockpile, gesturing Tanzania’s message to the world that it was committed to the fight against poaching.
According to Interpol, a "significant portion" of ivory reaching international markets originates from elephant herds in Tanzania, which has been hit hard by a global spike in poaching over the past decade with its jumbo population dropping to about 43,000 in 2014 from 109,000 in 2009.
The Kenyan Government’s ivory burn will follow the Giants Club’s two-day wildlife summit in Laikipia, at which African heads of state are due to discuss combating the illegal ivory trade in one of the biggest government-led conservation conferences in the continent’s history.
Mary Rice, Executive Director and Team Leader of EIA’s Elephants Campaign, said: “Zero trade is a crucial step towards achieving zero poaching and Kenya is sending an unequivocal message to the major consumer markets of China and Japan that ivory has no place or value anywhere other than on living elephants.
“Pro-trade interests would have us believe that consumer demand can be satiated with stockpiled ivory supplying the market for a legal ivory trade, controlling prices and putting criminals out of business – but this deluded solution doesn’t stand up to the slightest scrutiny.
“The 1989 international ivory trade ban was working well, until parties to the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) were persuaded to undermine it by authorising ‘one-off’ sales in 1999 and 2008.
These served only to confuse consumers, stimulate fresh demand and provide a cover through which to launder black market ivory. It resulted in a swift and bloody spike in poaching which has made the past decade a catastrophe for elephant populations.”
Campaigners of the anti-ivory trade say that EIA, which played an instrumental role in achieving the 1989 ban on international ivory trade, has long advocated that governments should consolidate, inventory and destroy ivory stockpiles after conducting appropriate forensic analysis and when it is no longer required for enforcement purposes.
They believe that public ivory destruction does not only send a clear message to consumer countries that ivory has no legitimate value, but disposal of stockpiled ivory plays a significant role in preventing corruption and facilitates leakage into illegal trade.
Since 2006, based on public records alone EIA has recorded at least 11 incidents in nine countries, namely Botswana, Cameroon, Gabon, Mozambique, the Philippines, Tanzania, Uganda, the UK, Malawi and Zambia where ivory weighing between 3.35kg and three tonnes has been stolen from supposedly secure stockpiles.
In Uganda, the loss of ivory was discovered in 2014 by the Government during a routine inspection of its ivory stockpile. The Government not only lost ivory from its stockpile back into the illegal trade but has also seized ivory that was likely stolen from other countries’ stockpiles.
South Africa opposed a resolution in January that lauded the 175-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) for supporting the destruction of government stockpiles of ivory seized from poachers and traffickers.
South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe are also strongly against the idea of destroying illegal ivory after each one had made a profit from their stockpiles in 2008, when CITES approved a one-time ivory sale to China and Japan.
Critics say that the move is widely believed to have spurred the current elephant poaching crisis, in which some 30,000 animals are killed each year.
The United States, European Union, Kenya, Uganda and other countries argue that given the current global poaching crisis, it would be unproductive and dangerous to proceed with discussions about legalising the ivory trade.
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