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Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Saturday set ablaze world’s biggest ivory stockpile in a grand gesture aimed at shocking the world into stopping the slaughter of elephants.
Mr. Kenyatta, who is the first to light the semi-circle of tusks expected to burn for days in Nairobi’s national park, on Friday, demanded a total ban on trade in ivory to end trafficking and prevent the extinction of elephants in the wild.
The historic bonfires is the largest-ever torching of ivory, involving 105 tonnes from thousands of dead elephants, dwarfing by seven times any stockpile burned before.
Another 1.35 tonnes of rhino horn will also be burned, representing the killing of some 340 of the endangered animals.
Africa is home to between 450,000 to 500,000 elephants, but more than 30,000 are killed every year on the continent to satisfy demand for ivory in Asia, where raw tusks sell for around $1,000 (800 euros) a kilo (2.2 pounds).
The pyres prepared in Nairobi contain some 16,000 tusks and pieces of ivory.
Kenya has a long history of ivory burnings, spearheading a wider movement of public demonstrations across the world, but nothing on this scale before.
On the black market, such a quantity of ivory could sell for over $100 million, and the rhino horn could raise as much as $80 million.
Rhino horn can fetch as much as $60,000 per kilo — more than gold or cocaine.
But despite the staggering size of the piles to be burned, totalling some five percent of global stocks, the ivory represents just a fraction of the animals killed every year.
AFP
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