Elephant in the room | 2 June 2016

To mark World Environment Day this Sunday, Angola will celebrate its zero-tolerance approach to the illegal wildlife trade — the third biggest illegal trade after drugs and arms. Angolans are seeking to rebuild their shattered elephant population in the face of the relentless trade in ivory. But the debate is marked by sharply opposing views, which tend to be centred on such spectacular stunts as the burning of government stockpiles of elephant tusks.

Last month saw the greatest sacrifice of ivory there has ever been. Uhuru Kenyatta, president of Kenya, ignited a pyre 10 ft high and weighing more than 100 tons. Its assembly required the deaths of 6,700 elephants. That’s a lot of money going up in flames, smouldering for a good week until it’s destroyed. No one can calculate exactly how much because the black market in ivory is huge.

The United Nation Convention on Trade in Endangered Species outlawed the international ivory trade in 1989. Yet Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe have all negotiated permission to sell large quantities to Japan and China: 105 tons in 2008. Other nations have sought an unambiguous ban.

It was Kenya that led the way in ivory-burning. The first burn was in 1989. The story goes that Richard Leakey, Kenya’s head of conservation, sought the help of a special-effects expert from Hollywood and created the bonfire with inflammable glue and jet fuel. It burned a treat — and, crucially, got noticed. The sacrifice of a few million dollars caught the world’s imagination. Although some said the ivory should have been sold to benefit elephants, or the poor, the government’s refusal to profit from the actions of criminals was seen as a fine thing.

Since then 21 countries have destroyed more than 26 tons of ivory.