Government publicly
destroys biggest ever illegal ivory haul in bid to show poachers it will not
tolerate the violent trade
Tuesday 26 January
2016 10.19 GMTLast modified on Tuesday 26 January 201610.22 GMT
The Sri Lankan government
on Tuesday publicly destroyed its biggest ever illegal ivory haul in what
customs officials said was an attempt to show poachers that the island will not
tolerate the violent trade.
More than 350 tusks were
displayed at the Galle Face promenade in the island’s capital Colombo before
being fed into a 100-tonne crusher to be sent to an industrial furnace.
The haul, which experts
said came from African elephants slaughtered for their tusks, was seized at
Colombo’s port nearly four years ago en route to Dubai from Kenya.
“There are some very
small tusks which would have come from baby elephants,” Colombo customs
director, Udayantha Liyanage, told reporters.
“We are trying to
demonstrate that there is no value for blood ivory ... It is horribly cruel and
the elephants suffer for about a week before they die,” he said.
Blood ivory is a term
used by activists to describe tusks obtained illegally by slaughtering
elephants.
The organisers observed a
two-minute silence for the slain elephants before Buddhist, Hindu, Christian
and Muslim leaders performed funeral rites for the animals.
Liyanage detected the
container-load holding 359 pieces of ivory in May 2012 while it was in transit
to Dubai from the Kenyan port of Mombasa, falsely labelled as storing plastic
waste.
Officials confiscated the
ivory in line with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species
of Wild Flora and Fauna regulations, the customs director said.
The illegal trade in
ivory from African elephants is driven by Asian and Middle Eastern demand for
their tusks, which are used in ornaments and medicines.
Most Sri Lankan elephants
do not have tusks and the animals are venerated and protected by law.
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