Kenya up in arms over ivory
2003-02-25 22:59
Nairobi - Kenya has renewed a protest at last November's decision by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) to allow limited ivory trade, after wildlife authorities here seized 33 raw elephant tusks.
"The seizure of ivory underscores the dangers of reopening international ivory trade and lifting the ban on such trade," Kenyan Environment and Natural Resources Minister Newton Kulundu told a press conference in Nairobi, where the tusks were displayed.
"It confirms our fears that the decision taken by Cites sends out signals to poachers, dealers, traders and everyone involved in the illegal trade, that the markets have reopened and we will always see an increase in poaching and trafficking of ivory," Kulundu said.
Kulundu said the "presence of several arms in the neighbouring countries, has increased poaching in Kenya and now threatens to wipe out the remaining 27 000 elephants".
The Kenyan Wildlife Services (KWS) anti-poaching squad, working on a tip-off, on Sunday intercepted a Land Cruiser bakkie carrying 351kg of 33 tusks in Marsabit district, near Kenya's border with Ethiopia and arrested five people, due to appear in court on Wednesday.
"They were transporting them to lucrative tourist markets in Ethiopia and eventually to Egypt and the Asian countries," said Cites co-ordinator in KWS, Paula Kahumbu.
Last November, the 12th Cites conference in Santiago, Chile, allowed Namibia, South Africa and Botswana to sell off their ivory stockpiles amounting to 60 tons, a decision that vexed Kenya.
Losing elephants
"We maintain our belief that the decision taken in Santiago was premature and that, although they concerned countries at the end of the continent, we are losing elephants as a direct result," KWS Director Michael Wamithi said in a statement.
Wamithi said KWS will be intensifying its security operations using latest technology, enhance co-operation with neighbouring countries to hunt poachers and lobby for tough anti-poaching legislation.
"Kenya will seek in the next Cites meeting to define the terms of ivory trade and market routes and also ensure that countries that have lost elephants because of ivory do not play consumers to its (ivory) end products," Kahumbu said.
"Japan, China and other Asian nations are the largest Ivory markets, and they should take responsibility for the death of elephants," she added.
According to Kahumbu, KWS has stored up to 27 tons of Ivory which have been seized since 1989 and will be donated on a non-commercial basis to non-governmental organisations (NGOs), to take to museums around the world, with the collected used to conserve wildlife.
KWS maintains that the Cites decision has so far endangered elephants in Africa, especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the pachyderms are heavily poached.
"Unless something is done, DRC is going to lose its elephants after which they will be fully moving to Kenya that has 27 000 elephants," Kahumbu warned. - Sapa-AFP
- SAPA