Kenya burns 7,000 dead elephants ivory worth $100m in bid to stamp out illegal poaching trade

Kenya burns 7,000 dead elephants
ivory worth $100m in bid to stamp out illegal poaching trade

Officials in Kenya have sent millions of pounds worth of ivory up in flames in a bid to stamp out the illegal wildlife trade and the slaughter of thousands of elephants every year.
Some ten towering piles - or £68 million ($100m) dollars worth - of ivory was incinerated in Kenya's Nairobi National Park today, in what was the largest ivory burn in history.
Compiled from the tusks of some 7,000 dead elephants, 105 tonnes of ivory smouldered as Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta condemned the illegal ivory trade which is decimating the elephant population across the African continent.
Lighting the fire in Nairobi's national park, the president demanded a total ban on trade in ivory to end the 'murderous' trafficking and prevent the extinction of elephants in the wild.

'No one has any business trading in ivory,' said Kenyatta, addressing the huge crowds gathered in the muddy fields at the burn.
He added: 'This trade means death. The death of our elephants, and the death of our natural heritage.'
Kenya's ivory burn follows a steep rise in poaching across Africa in recent years. With estimates of one elephant being killed every 15 minutes, the species currently faces extinction within the next 10 years.
Celebrities including Sex and the City actress Kirstin Davies attended the event to show support for the burn and the all-out ban on illegal ivory Kenya is calling for.

Representing the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, a Nairobi based organisation which rescues orphaned baby elephants, the actress said: 'It's very sad to see so much ivory in one place. I have no doubt that tusks from mothers of some of the orphaned baby elephants are in those piles.'
Africa is home to between 450,000 to 500,000 elephants, but more than 30,000 are killed every year on the continent to satisfy demand for ivory in Asia, where raw tusks sell for more than £680 ($1,000) a kilo (2.2 pounds).
The piles burned today contained some 16,000 tusks and pieces of ivory.
On the black market, such a quantity of ivory could sell for more than £68million ($100 million), and the rhino horn could raise as much as £54million ($80 million).
Rhino horn can fetch more than gold or cocaine.

Speaking out against the poaching crisis gripping the continent, she praised the burn as a way of raising global awareness about the plight of elephants: 'people need to know we're going to leave the world to our children with no elephants in it,' she added.
Illegal hunting spiked in the three years to 2012 when about 100,000 elephants were killed, the equivalent of more than 33,000 a year.
In the 1970s, Africa had about 1.2 million elephants, but now has 400,000 to 450,000.
The situation for rhinos is more precarious. There are fewer than 30,000 left across Africa and one species, the Northern White Rhino, is on the brink of extinction. The last three are kept in Kenya under heavy guard.
As smoke and flames billowed from the ivory piles, renowned conservationist and chairman of the Kenyan Wildlife Service, Richard Leakey justified the burn.

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