Kenya’s president has set fire to thousands of elephant tusks and rhino horns on Saturday, destroying a stockpile that could have instead been sold to fund wildlife conservation programs and help prevent further elephant and rhino deaths from poaching.
According to an article in The Age, plumes of smoke rose as the flames took hold of the tusks piled up in a game reserve on the edge of the capital Nairobi, destroying 105 tonnes of confiscated ivory from about 8000 animals and worth an estimated $226 million Рthe biggest ever incineration of its kind.
Professional hunter and conservationist Ivan Carter estimates the money could have been used to fund the annual salaries of 83,000 game scouts. Kenyan President, Uhuru Kenyatta, however, has dismissed claims that Kenya, which staged its first such burning in 1989, should instead have sold the ivory and the tonne of rhino horn for the benefit of wildlife.
“Kenya is making a statement that for us ivory is worthless unless it is on our elephants,” he told dignitaries before setting light to the first of almost a dozen pyres.
Kenya is seeking a total world ban on ivory sales when the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) meets in South Africa later this year as poaching poses an increasing risk to the species.
CITES banned commercial trade in African elephant ivory in 1989, but since then has permitted one-off sales.
 
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