NAIROBI - Kenyan wildlife authorities have seized their biggest haul of illegal ivory since 2000 and fear the easing of a ban on ivory trade could lead to a rise in elephant poaching.
Kenya Wildlife Service officials said five people were arrested early this week after service officers, acting on a
tip-off, ambushed a vehicle near Kenya's border with Ethiopia.
The officers recovered 33 tusks, or 361kg of ivory. It was the biggest haul since 537kg was seized in 2000.
Last November, the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) voted to allow three southern African nations to stage one-off sales of their ivory stockpiles.
Kenya vehemently opposed the decision, saying even limited, regulated sales encouraged poaching.
Kenyan environment minister Newton Kulundu said although the latest haul could not be directly related to the easing of trade restrictions, Kenya was adamant a ban on all ivory trade should remain in place.
"We are disturbed by the trend of poaching in parks," Mr Kulundu said. "We maintain that the ban should stay. Our elephant population which stands at 27,000 will be wiped out in a year if it is lifted."
Mr Kulundu said the Kenya Wildlife Service has an ivory stockpile of about 27 tonnes which it hopes to give to museums in Europe and Africa.
"There is a trust fund set up by non-governmental organisations that could take the ivory on a non-commercial basis for people to see what tusks look like," he said.
"The money that would generate would be ploughed back into animal conservation."
The service's CITES coordinator, Paula Kahumbu, said two committees would sit before next year's UN endangered species convention in Thailand to decide whether Namibia, South Africa and Botswana had fulfilled the necessary conditions to sell off their stockpiles.
- REUTERS
Herald Feature: Environment
