History’s most extensive Ivory Burn

The Ivory Burn in Kenya

By Lars Jacobsson. Photo: Lars Jacobsson

The Perfect World Foundation, and several other wildlife and environmental conservation organizations from all over the world, were present in Nairobi when Kenya Wildlife Service burned their 105-tonne stock of seized ivory, from over 6,700 elephants, in an anti-poaching event. The event aimed to show the world that ivory tusks don’t have value to anyone but elephants. Just a few weeks after the burn, both the US and China banned ivory trade.

Over the past decade, more than 150,000 elephants have been killed for their tusks in Africa alone, which is the equivalent of one elephant being killed every 15 minutes. Organized crime syndicates, the same criminals who trade drugs and weapons, dominate poaching. In this organized hunt for ivory, all imaginable methods and resources are used including helicopters, binoculars with night vision and satellites. The elephants are usually shot with rifles, but hunting also takes place with bows and arrows, and waterholes have been poisoned with cyanide in order to kill the elephants on the quiet, causing the death of lots of other animals who drink there too.

The difficulty in combating this form of crime is that it’s concealed – from the hunting to the smuggling and the trade. Guards, veterinarians, political officials, port staff for smuggling etc. are bribed. Anyone could be involved. The militant terrorist organization Al Shabaab has been linked to elephant poaching in Africa, as ivory is an important commodity to be able to buy or trade weapons for their holy war – Jihad.

THE BLACK MARKET IN IVORY. China and Vietnam are the two largest single markets for ivory trading, with these markets jointly trading tens of thousands of kilos of ivory every year.

Nhi Khe, a small town a few miles outside of Hanoi in Vietnam, is considered to be the centre for ivory and rhino horn trading in Asia. It has always been unclear why this small village plays such a central role, but the rumours are that corrupt politicians are behind this trading place. On both sides of Nhi Khe’s main street, there is shop after shop selling ivory and rhino horn, and this is where traders from Asia gather to buy, sell and distribute the illegal goods throughout Asia.

In China ivory is a luxury and status symbol, like an unusual diamond or a piece of gold jewellery. It’s hard to see the animals behind these objects. Lots of traders stock the ivory while waiting for elephants' extinction, as the value and prices will skyrocket then. The fewer live elephants there are left, the higher the value of ivory, and the more elephants they shoot ... this vicious circle can only have one ending: total extinction.

The bigger the piece of ivory is the more sought after it is, and the higher the value on the market. This means that all the big elephant males with the largest tusks are shot first. This also means that the herd’s leaders, whose task is to raise the younger animals, vanish, causing complete chaos to break out among the teenagers and young animals. This is often what makes young elephants begin to behave abnormally, and creates conflict between humans and animals.

The poachers who risk their lives to kill these animals receive about $7 per kilo / 2.2 lbs for ivory. On the market in China, the buyers pay about $3,000 per kilo / 2.2 lbs for the same ivory.

High-ranking government officials in China are thought to be behind this trade, and the Chinese President is often blamed directly for the threat of extinction the elephants face.

DID YOU KNOW THAT ELEPHANTS

... are social and family-oriented animals with strong emotional lives. Elephants have been observed visiting the remains or the place where an elephant from their family or herd died for decades after their death. Elephant calves have also been observed grieving to death after their parents were killed by poachers.

... are the world’s largest land animals? An African elephant can reach 3 metres / 9.8 feet tall, weigh between 4,000–7,500 kilos / 8,818–16,534 lbs, and live to be up to 70–80 years old. And their tusks never stop growing.

… are pregnant for almost two years, 620–680 days, and only have one calf per pregnancy.

… spend between 12–18 hours every day eating grass, plants and fruit.

… bathe in streams or swamps and then throw mud and sand over themselves as a ‘sun protection factor’ to protect their skin from the roasting sun.

THE LARGE IVORY BURNING. In spite of the smuggling and corruption, there are several strong groups fighting the threat of extinction, and over the past ten years, over 1,000 rangers have been killed by poachers in Africa. The powerhouse Dr Richard Leakey has for many years run Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), an organization under the Kenyan military. In his efforts to stop elephant poaching, Dr Leakey crashed his propeller-driven plane in 1993 and lost both of his legs. It turned out that the plane had been sabotaged, and terrorist organizations were strongly suspected, but no one has ever succeeded in proving anything. Ivory and other animal products valued at hundreds of millions of dollars that have been seized in the fight against poaching are kept in the giant storerooms of KWS, and it is known that ivory is stolen from these storehouses and ends up on the black market. In April 2016, the pressure on the Kenyan government became too great, as Dr Richard Leakey and other animal rights activists such as Paula Kahumbu and Philip Murgor put pressure on the government, forcing them to agree to burn the stored ivory.

The Perfect World Foundation, along with several wildlife and environmental conservation organizations from around the world, were in Nairobi’s National Park to participate in the world's greatest demonstration against poaching. Tusks from more than 6,700 elephants, horns from hundreds of rhinos and much more were gathered into 12 giant piles to be burned, with the message that the value of these products cannot be measured in money, only in life. The joint global pressure of the organizations on world governments resulted in all ivory trade being banned in both the US and China on 1 July that same year.

In September 2016, Dr Richard Leakey, the main initiator of the ivory burning, was presented with The Perfect World Foundation’s honorary prize, The Perfect World Award, during the organization's ‘Save The Elephant’ support gala in Gothenburg, Sweden. The award is presented annually to a person who has made a significant difference to conserving our world’s environment and wildlife.