Over two tons of ivory artifacts were crushed in a high-profile event at the heart of New York City’s Central Park on Thursday.
American and Kenyan officials present put elephant poachers and ivory traffickers on notice saying they should stop before they are caught.
"Today, we are crushing ivory, tomorrow we will be crushing you," Daniel Foote, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, said.
Foote noted that ivory trafficking was linked to terrorism, the narcotics trade, and other criminal cartels.
Deputy Chief of Mission at the Kenya Embassy in Washington David Gacheru exclusively told the Star that it was crucial to cut down the supply chain for ivory.
"...this is traded by terrorist organization and contributes to the East Africa’s region’s instability," he said.
African Wildlife Foundation director of media relations Denis Galava added: "Illegal trade in wildlife is supporting not only corruption, but terrorism… and also trade in narcotics."
Galava said trafficking was a security and an existential threat to Kenya.
IVORY ARTIFACTS DESTROYED
About 500 people gathered at the event as they focused on the wildlife preservation aspect.
They waved elephant-face paper fans in the New York summer heat and sporting red bandanas offered by conservation groups that helped sponsor the event.
And a moment of silence honored the approximately 1,000 park rangers who have been murdered worldwide over the past decade while seeking to protect wildlife.
The ivory artifacts destroyed, ranging from unadorned tusks to elaborately carved Chinese junks, were valued at USD eight million.
Officials said they came from the tusks of about 100 murdered elephants.
All were seized in a series of law enforcement operations led by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
Police Lt Karen Pryzyklek, who heads the department’s newly-formed forensics team, said she hopess this event would lead to new cooperation with Kenya and other African authorities in suppressing the ivory trade.
It is not yet known if any of the ivory crushed is from Kenya.
Dr Samuel Wasser, of the Center for Conservation Biology at the University of Washington is currently testing DNA taken from some artifacts.
And Dr Kevin Uno, of Columbia University’s Lamont Assistant Research Professor at Columbia University Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, who researches paleo-biology in Kenya’s Turkana region, is radio-carbon dating some items.
A journalist walks past burning stocks of an estimated 105 tonnes of ivory and a tonne of rhino horn confiscated from smugglers and poachers at the Nairobi National Park near Nairobi, Kenya, April 30, 2016. /REUTERS
Taking the ivory out of the market permanently, whatever its provenance, and prosecuting people dealing in ivory trade, is crucial to deterring further trafficking.
John Calvelli, executive vice president of public affairs of the Wildlife Conservation Society, said the crushing sounds inside Central Park today equal justice for elephants.
"The crusher pulverized more than 2 tons of elephant ivory, ensuring that this ivory will never again bring profit to the criminals killing off the world’s elephants," he said.
ARRESTS MADE IN KENYA
Kenya has been keeping track of poachers and traffickers as arrests have been intensified of the past few months.
Police seized ivory worth Sh12 million and arrested three suspects in Mariakani, Kilifi County on June 12.
The three were arrested in a house with the six pieces of ivory weighing 70 kilogrammes by CID officers.
Seven smugglers involved in the illegal ivory trade from Uganda to Singapore were also arrested as a result of an 18-month investigation by African and Asian law enforcement officials, a counter-trafficking organisation said.
The operation netted a top Kenyan customs officer and shipping agents who facilitated the covert ivory pipeline, highlighting progress in Africa on cross-border collaboration by law enforcement agencies, Freeland, the anti-trafficking organisation that supported the operation, said.
Tens of thousands of African elephants are killed for their tusks every year, leading to drop of 20-30 per cent in their numbers on the continent over the last decade.
But environmentalists say law enforcement agencies are increasingly disrupting smuggling networks.
Those arrested were linked to a seizure in March 2014 of a tonne of ivory in Singapore. That shipment was believed to have originated in Uganda and been shipped out of Kenya.
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