Plumes
of smoke rose as the flames took hold of tusks piled up in a game
reserve on the edge of the capital Nairobi, destroying 105 tonnes of
ivory from about 8,000 animals, the biggest ever incineration of its
kind.
President Uhuru Kenyatta
dismissed those who argued Kenya, which staged its first such burning in
1989, should instead have sold the ivory and the tonne of rhino horn,
which by some estimates would have an illegal market value of $150
million.
"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.
Kenyatta's call for an ivory trade ban was backed by Ali Bongo, president of Gabon, home to the forest elephant.
"To all the poachers, to all the buyers, to all the traders, your days are numbered," Bongo said at the ceremony.
Conservationists
say the original CITES ban, and Kenya's 1989 burning, helped reduce
demand and relieve a crisis for the elephant population but that one-off
legal sales have revived the market.
"EVIL, ILLEGAL COMMODITY"
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.
Kenya
relies on tourism, with many drawn to safaris at luxury camps by the
trove of animals Kenya boasts, particularly the "Big Five" - elephant,
rhino, leopard, lion and buffalo.
Renowned
conservationist and anthropologist Richard Leakey urged African and
other nations to destroy their ivory stocks too. To those who refused,
he said: "They are speculators on an evil, illegal commodity. There are
can be no justification for speculating price rises in ivory down the
road."
Pledges last year by China and the United
States, two of the biggest ivory markets, to enact almost complete bans
on imports and exports have helped drive ivory prices lower.
But
rhino horn prices are still rising, conservationists say. Armed patrols
of sanctuaries and other measures have helped curb some illegal hunting
but the animal's future remains grim.
Kenya alone
had 20,000 rhinos in the 1970s, falling to 400 in the 1990s. It now has
almost 650 black rhinos. It is protecting the last three northern white
rhinos as scientists race against time to find artificial reproduction
techniques.
Poachers in Kenya can sell the horns
of a single dead rhino for the equivalent of about $50,000 in local
markets, earning in one night what would take them many years in regular
employment.
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