Elephant conservation news 21 - 28 August 2009
Customs officials in Vietnam and Thailand seized three tonnes of illegal ivory last weekend, according to reports in Uganda's New Vision and The Times of India.
On Friday, two tonnes of elephant tusks were discovered by Vietnamese officials in a shipping container full of snail shells from Kenya. The find followed the seizure of nearly 100 kilograms of elephant tusks from the boot of a car that was stopped last week in the central Thanh Hoa province of the country.
A further tonne of ivory, also believed to have originated from Kenya or Uganda, was confiscated by customs at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport on Saturday.
It is thought that the ivory was destined for Chinese and Japanese markets, where consumers are willing to pay more than a thousand US dollars per kilo.
Conservationists believe that this demand, coupled with the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species' 2007 decision to partially lift the international trade ban, has driven the increase in poaching in Sub-Saharan African countries over the last five years.
The ban was lifted to allow for a 'one-off' sale of stockpiled ivory to China and Japan from a number of African countries, in an attempt to inject cash into their struggling economies.
Shelley Waterland from the Born Free Foundation told elephant.co.uk news: "In the face of a serious upsurge in elephant poaching, many countries find themselves without the necessary resources to protect their fragile and vulnerable elephant populations.
"The ivory poachers and dealers they are facing are not petty criminals, they are organised, well-armed and dangerous."
She said that governments which made the decision to approve the one-off sale "must take responsibility for what is now unfolding".
"The UK and other governments must now admit to their serious mistakes and pledge significant funds to those countries desperately trying to protect their elephants. For some elephant populations, it may already be too late. But others can still be saved ? the time to act is now."
