Africa's burning issue

Kenya destroys large stockpile of elephant ivory as it ramps up fight against poaching

While ivory poaching has led to a drop in the number of elephants in Africa, the degradation of the ecosystem for elephants should not be neglected, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said on March 3 before the Nairobi National Park set ablaze 15 metric tons of ivory.

"In the last three years, poaching and illicit wildlife trafficking have become a growing challenge for Kenya. These crimes threaten our biodiversity, security and peace," Kenyatta said.

The ivory came from elephants dying of natural causes, felled during human-wildlife conflict and domestic poaching.

Kenyatta also vowed to intensify the war against wildlife crimes, adding that Kenya has developed a robust legal framework and invested in state-of-the-art technology to tackle wildlife crimes. He noted the passage of the 2013 Wildlife Act, acquisition of new technology and the recruitment of rangers as enhancements in the response to poaching.

The ivory destruction on March 3 to draw the nation's attention to poaching was Kenya's third since the last 1980s, after then president Daniel Moi in July 1989 and his successor Mwai Kibaki in July 2011.

In the past three years, Gabon, Belgium, Chad, Gabon, France, the Philippines and China have also destroyed contraband elephant tusks.

The Chinese government has increased its campaigns against illegal ivory. It destroyed 6.1 tons of confiscated ivory tusks and carvings in Guangdong province in January 2014.

Paul Udoto, spokesman for the Kenya Wildlife Service, the government agency championing wildlife conservation, says there has been commendable collaboration between Kenya and China in the fight against elephant poaching.

"We are working closely with China. They are one of our key supporters in conversation."

He believes further collaboration is in the pipeline, noting previous advocacy efforts by Chinese celebrities such as actress Li Bingbing and former NBA star Yao Ming.

He points out that Kenya's conservation efforts are challenged by the sophisticated sharing of information between poachers and government corruption.

According to the United Nations Environment Program, Africa was home to an estimated 500,000 elephants and has been losing 30,000 annually from poaching.

More than 100,000 elephants were killed for their ivory between 2010 and 2012, according to research led by George Wittemyer, chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of Save the Elephants. Although the situation is improving in some parts of Kenya, total elephant populations in both eastern and central Africa are presently registering declines along with many populations in the south.

"Last year, we lost 164 elephants," Udoto says. "It's a very high number but it's much better than what's been happening over the last five years, when we had a sharp rise in the number of wild elephants lost to poachers."

"That problem is largely coming under control through various initiatives that we are implementing under the national ivory action plan that brought different regions, different agencies and other countries working together."

But Udoto says a degradation of habitat is a bigger factor that explains the drop in the mammal's population totals.

"Poaching is also a problem, but it is not the top issue. The No 1 problem is people taking land and using it for farming and constructing buildings. Cumulatively, our ecosystem is heavily degraded. People have blocked animal migration routes. They have blocked passage areas."

Contact the writers at houliqiang@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 03/06/2015 page3)