Tanzania withdraws bid to sell 'legal ivory;' Kenyan poachers kill 12 elephants anyway

Conservation groups rebuff Tanzania's bid to sell $55 million in ivory and downgrade elephants' endangered status. But Kenya's largest massacre of elephants Jan. 5 points to the difficulties of ending poaching.

By Fredrick Nzwili,?Correspondent / January 11, 2013

In this photo taken in December 2012, an elephant walks inside the Addo Elephant National Park near Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Tanzania withdrew bid to sell 'legal ivory, but Kenyan poachers killed 12 elephants in a Kenyan park on Jan. 5 anyway ? the largest single killing ever here ? shows how fragile protections across the continent still are for the creatures.

Schalk van Zuydam/AP

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International restrictions on elephant ivory poaching gained a bit of clout after a key African nation abandoned efforts to sell a hefty trove of??legal ivory.?

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But even as observers hoped that Tanzania's decision would ripple across Africa, sending a bigger message to poachers, the massacre of an entire family of 12 elephants in a Kenyan park Jan. 5 ? the largest single killing ever here ? shows how fragile protections across the continent still are for the creatures.

In October, Tanzania wished to sell ivory stockpiles valued at $55 million?to?China and Japan.?The bid?was set for debate in Bangkok this March at a Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). At the same time,Tanzania was planning to request to remove elephants from the highest level or ?most endangered? species list to a lower category. Tanzania insists its ivory stock, weighing more than 100 tons, comes from dead or culled animals that were not poached.

But opposition to the sale from conservation groups and anti-crime lobbies proved too stiff, and by the end of December Tanzania withdrew its bid.

Anti-poachers argued that such a large volume of ivory, made suddenly available on the global market, would send all the wrong signals and further embolden illegal trade, smuggling, and poaching. Tanzania's withdrawal of sale was seen as indirectly supporting anti-poaching.

?We see this [withdrawal] as a positive move that will inspire others to invest more on wildlife protection. It would have meant far more problems for Tanzania and its wildlife,? says Saidi Katensi, the CEO of African Wildlife Service of Tanzania.?

Doesn't translate to other African nations

Yet poachers in Kenya last week seemed little influenced. They shot the elephant family at the Tvaso East National Park, with a baby apparently crushed by a falling mother.

In a separate incident days later the Kenya Wildlife Service reported its rangers shot two poachers in Isiolo County, about 250 miles north of the park. The service claimed it a recovered a G3 rifle, 12 rounds of ammunition, and eight pieces of ivory.

Public shock at the massacre led Kenya?s Prime Minister Raila Odinga to link poaching with the country's economic problems: ?Security agencies must treat the ? poaching threat as part of the insecurity griping the country and not a wildlife issue to be addressed solely by the Kenya Wildlife Service.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/GG7fpKn6ojE/Tanzania-withdraws-bid-to-sell-legal-ivory-Kenyan-poachers-kill-12-elephants-anyway

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