No to Ivory burning - 'Save the Ivory to Save the Elephant!'

'NO TO IVORY BURNING!'
Save the Ivory to Save the Elephant.

To Dr. Richard Leakey, the chairman KWS (Kenya Wildlife Service) and by extension, the Government of Kenya.

Kenyans and the world have noted with shock that you're publicising an event to burn more ivory in Kenya.
Taking the point straight home, once again be reminded that KWS was solely established to be the custodians of Kenyan national heritage holding it in trust for the people of Kenya. At no given time was KWS given the mandate to destroy or burn the artefacts and trophies that belongs to the people of Kenya.
Kenya national treasures belong to the people of Kenya and at no time should it ever be destroyed at will or for publicity purpose.
Protecting the elephants and rhinos is a highly commendable gesture but burning or destroying the ivory stocks should not be the road to realize the goal.

'Ivory belongs to the elephants!' - is a song that all the enthusiasts love to sing!
The song that nobody loves is this :
Stockpiles, culled, confiscated, and other ivory stocks in strong houses belongs to the dead elephants.
The elephants that succumbed to adversaries of mother nature and man made calamities.

The lucrative ivory trade would always be there, let's just accept this simple fact, it's the bitter truth. It has been there before, it's here now and it's going to be there for a very long time to come.

The stockpiles are in limited storage areas where it can easily be guarded all round the clock. The living jumbos are scattered all across the vast expanse of land and are vulnerable by the poaching cartels round the clock!
It's like fighting a losing war.

Just a few months ago a rhino was gunned in broad light right under the noses of KWS in Nairobi National Park within the proximity of it's Headquarters. It's amazing this really happened!!

The price of corruption is costing Kenya billions per year, tax evaders are draining the systems in billions per year the list doesn't end.
Safe storage for the ivories is an investment of the state and should be implemented from the state coffers.

It seems there is inadequate consultation in government, and less engagement with stakeholders on issues to build consensus. The return of roadside declarations, and whimsical interventions not based on merit is now the order of the day in Kenya.
The government seems to be on the warpath with everyone at the same time, and is clearly intolerant of dissenting views. It wants to shut down civil society by attempting to micro-manage their operations and stifle their finances. It has tried to muzzle the media under the pretext of insecurity and better regulation.

The bottom line stands that corruption is the mother of all evils bedevelling Kenya in all sectors of the arms of administration. The government seems to be on a wild goose chase on matters of corruption, there's nothing worth showing on the commitment to purge this menace.
We understand that politics is a delicate game of numbers, alliances and deceit, but there are times when national interest and image should override these considerations.

* Here's an extract by John Githongo, the CEO - Inuka Kenya Trust :

°~ Exploding ships and infernos of ivory may look good on TV or on the front pages of the newspapers, but they are no substitute for real action to tackle poaching and the drug trade and to bring culprits to book. Similarly, hagiographic retelling of our history is no substitute for truth and justice.
Photo-ops and makeovers will only take us so far. Eventually we will have to confront reality, whether we are dealing with illicit activity or with the effects of our history. And the longer we put off that confrontation, the harder and more traumatic it will be. °~


Before our time, ten years ago we had experts in the field of conservation who'd drowned their heads in volumes of thesis, scripts, manuals, journals, libraries, research, citations etc and crafty policy makers at their sides, who formulated detailed plans on how best to manage the future of our heritage and prior to that, twenty years ago we also had other brilliant people up there in the echelons of power who thought they also had the solutions to all the conservation problems - but still today REALITY is hitting us hard like a rock, we're facing the JUMBO and RHINO extinction in the eye!

So what's makes KWS think that the recycled ideas being peddled around is the best. You can't do the same things over and over again and expect different results.

Burning of ivory initially was used as publicity stunt, drama for the Kenya politicians and PR to solicit foreign donor funding. It's not appealing anymore to the donors because they're not blind not to see the bottomless pit where the money drains with little to show as results except corruption.
The recent idea of new personnel in the helm of KWS had nothing to do with conservation solely but was conceived in order to draw back the donors who'd flown through the windows in droves.

The point is simple, you cannot change the way the Buddhists think about ivory; you cannot change the way the Catholics think about ivory; you cannot change the Chinese mentality towards ivory and one still cannot change other peoples religion or idiotic cultures overnight.
Ivory will always be close to the hearts of the religious and cultural fanatics not because of it's structure or chemical composition but because of what it symbolises, it's prestige and what they term as the supernatural effects that they believe the ivory posses.
You cannot change that mentality even in a million years that's the bitter truth. We've to learn to live with these simple facts.

Controlled or otherwise, Ivory sales will always remain both legal and illegal business world over - in the US, China, Singapore, Japan, Saudi, Yemen, Hong-Kong etc etc, you name it!
It's going to be problem for a very long time to come for the world and there's nothing but little that can be done except to accept and be reduced as mere spectators as things unfold.

Though the stockpiles of ivory is out of the market it's still believed to be the stabilisation force for speculators within the ivory industry.

Releasing the stockpiles in a controlled way under surveillance and monitor, to the major legal curving industry of the far east would definitely or most probably make an impact and so divert the poaching cartels away from our parks.
It's an alternative route to save the living jumbos and rhinos at the expense of their dead ones.
Let's use the dead elephants to save the living ones. That's common sense. Plough back the income derived from the dead elephants to save the living ones!

The challenge should now shift to focus on what can be done here locally to put an end to the jumbo killing menace. Let's concentrate and put heads together to find a permanent local solutions to the local problems without looking at what the the guys across the fence on the other side of the world are doing with ivory and other wildlife trophies. The current lobbying for trophies ban by various movements around the world would take care of that.

It's almost impossible for the Chinese or the Buddhists to heed the call to ban in entirety the use of animal trophies - they'd always talk with nice and willing expressions but the followup would always be with zero action to show of their deeds!

If Dr. Leakey goes ahead and burn all the ivory stockpiles in the custody of KWS, a strong signal would pop up of an imminent impending shortage of the commodity in the market. The price would shoot over the roof, hundred times above platinum, the cartels would regroup - the loot would out weigh the risk by a thousand times. At the end we'd be the losers once again and as always, hopping back over to the drawing boards, armed with all the latest computer softwares and applications to find out what best to do next!

* This here is an article by Michael that I find most appropriate to share :

°~ To burn or not to burn the ivory isn't as simple as that,
Kenya's dramatic gesture had three effects:
First, as a media stunt it caught the attention of many people and helped to stigmatize the use of ivory products in the West.
Second, this in turn appeared to reduce consumer demand (and therefore prices and the incentive to poach elephants).
And third, Kenya was able to leverage this event as a means to raise significant donor funding. (The funding benefits did not endure and other African elephant range states did not benefit in this way; instead many had to bear the cost of forgone ivory sales harvested from sustainably-managed populations).

That was then, this is now. Ivory demand in East Asian markets has a deeper cultural imprint and was far less impacted by any stigma effect from the 1989 ban. With the rising affluence of East Asian consumers, black market prices and elephant poaching levels are increasing significantly.
Economists may disagree about many things, but one thing they do agree on is that if you reduce the supply of a product without a corresponding reduction in demand, prices will rise.
In a 1990 peer-reviewed journal article, economist Ted Bergstrom explains clearly why: If the goal is to protect threatened species, it does not make sense to destroy confiscated stockpiles, but rather to sell them back into the market to satisfy demand and restrain prices. If trade is already banned and consumers are still buying ivory, there is no reason to believe that reducing the supply will change their preferences. So burning ivory stockpiles at this time does not seem like such a great idea. Although intended to send out a message about the acceptability of buying ivory, this gesture may simply send out a different message to the market: that ivory is an increasingly scarce resource worthy of speculative investment.

WWF’s approach of constricting supplies is not restricted to elephants. It adopts similar policies toward tiger and rhino products.
The same principles apply here and the black market values for such products only appear to be rising over time, with disastrous consequences for wild populations.

Profile summary :
Michael ’t Sas-Rolfes is a sustainability economist, with unique experience and understanding of the role of markets for biodiversity conservation. For more than 25 years, he has been actively involved in various private conservation initiatives, starting as a financial manager of a private game reserve in South Africa. °~


So, back to the topic :
What's the point to profile, take DNA sampling, catalogue, take census inventory etc - just to burn the ivory stock at last!!
I think it's about time we had better consultants and professionals to manage our wildlife heritage for conservation, who can do better work than the KWS and the others in that league today!
We need independent professionals and intelligent minded personnel to steer the KWS to better heights.


* Quote :
°~ Section 83 part 3 of the Wildlife Conservation and Management Act 2013 requires that the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) undertakes an audit every year, of the Government trophy stockpile held in the country and publish the results of the audit in the National Gazette. Besides, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), a Convention, to which Kenya is a State Party, requires State Parties to take certain steps to properly manage elephant ivory and rhino horn stockpiles within their jurisdiction. Specifically, Resolution Number 10.10 of the CITES Convention as revised at the 16th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention requires State Parties to, and I quote, “maintain an inventory of government-held stockpiles of ivory and, where possible, of significant privately held stockpiles of ivory within their territory, and inform the Secretariat of the level of this stock each year before 28 February of each year, indicating: the number of pieces and their weight per type of Ivory (raw or worked); for relevant pieces, and if marked, their markings in accordance with the provisions of this Resolution; the source of the ivory; and the reasons for any significant changes in the stockpile compared to the preceding year”.
In compliance with the provisions of the Wildlife Act, 2013 and CITES Convention, therefore, the Government of Kenya conducted the first comprehensive and transparent National Inventory on all elephant ivory and rhino horns held in the country. All ivory in custody of KWS (both normal stocks and court exhibits) and those seized and kept under Police custody specifically in Mombasa Port were inventoried. Samples were taken from representative elephant ivory stocks and all rhino horns for DNA profiling and analysis to create a DNA reference library which will be a central component in analysis of forensic evidence for use in prosecution of wildlife crime and profiling genetic structure of our populations.
The data acquired in the inventory process is stored on a secure server hosted and maintained by Kenya Wildlife Service and with restricted access. Further, the elephant Ivory and Rhino Horn samples collected in the process have been stored in a secure sample bank for DNA profiling and analysis at the newly established KWS Forensic and Genetics Laboratory. This is the first time the trophy stockpiles were digitally inventoried using a tablet-based Inventory Technology and shall form the basis for future national audits. °~

Note:
There's no caption that validates 'burning of the ivory' in the statutes and laws of Kenya.
Contravening laws at will is a betrayal of public trust and a criminal offence under the penal code.

Burning of ivory makes the process irreversible, that's living in the past. If a brilliant idea whose time has come demands better management of our past trophies, there'd be nothing to present nor show except maybe ash.

Stocking or stockpiling the ivory on the other hand is living in the future, what cannot be done today with our brains might find better brains within very few short years to come and better solutions found - AND THE IVORY WOULD STILL BE THERE!!

The Maasai cattle vs the lions conflict persisted for years without any meaningful solutions found despite the fact that hundreds of experts with written volumes to their credit tried to out manoeuvre each other on the issue. They still could not unearth on how to keep the lions at bay off the Maasai bomas.
A semi illiterate Maasai boy with mere two discarded batteries and pieces of junk torch found the solution to that menace. The experts came back again just to improve on the invention. Some things work this way however much we try on the scholarly version.

Burning of ivory should be halted until an intelligent solution is found.
'Burning', as a word, is and has never been a solution to any meaningful idea. Saddam Hussein burned 'Oil Wells' during the infamous gulf war, what do we have in common??!!

'Banning' and 'Burning' are two words with the same sound but with totally different meanings that can never be interchanged.
KWS, please stick to the former and skip the later to make a difference.


So, it's time we say 'NO' to 'burning of the ivory' by the KWS and by extension the Kenya government - and to 'shout out' to them that 'the national treasures' belong to all Kenyans and not just a few people at the top.

It's a wake call to Kenyans and the world to rise up and say - 'NO MORE IVORY BURNING!'
- Use the Ivory from the dead Elephants to save the living Elephants!




Special Attn to:

1. UNESCO.
2. CITES.
3. WWF.
4. Wildlife Direct.
5. Kenyans for Wildlife.
6. Ulinzi Africa Foundation.
7. Light for Life.
8. World Land Trust.
9. Inuka Kenya Trust - Ni sisi !