Elephant tusks and objects, including statues, were burned on Tuesday in France to curb the illegal trade in protected species. In total, the operation involved 1,800 kg of ivory.
Elephant tusks, jewelry, and statuettes reduced to ashes: 1.8 tonnes of ivory, two-thirds of which were objects donated by individuals, were destroyed on Tuesday in Reims (F) at the initiative of an NGO to help stem the ivory trade, which is fatal to elephants.
From the raw or worked tusk to the mahjong game, from the phallic sculpture to the bracelet, these 1,800 kilos of objects, the equivalent of the tusks of around 180 elephants, were first crushed, then incinerated, under the control of a bailiff.
Co-organized by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), an NGO whose French headquarters is in Reims, and the French Biodiversity Office (OFB), this large-scale destruction aims to stem the ivory trade and to warn “of trafficking responsible for the deaths of thousands of elephants each year.” It “symbolically shows that ivory only has value for elephants,” underlined the director of IFAW France, David Germain-Robin.
Today, there are only 400,000 elephants left in Africa, a decline of 70% compared to the 1970s, mainly due to poaching, while in a century, elephant populations have fallen by more than 90%.
Encourage individuals to return items
In 2015, IFAW launched a campaign called “I donate my ivory” to encourage individuals to hand over their objects in order to destroy them. A successful initiative, with many individuals seeking to get rid of their ivory “for ethical reasons or for lack of being able to sell them legally following the latest changes in regulations,” according to Mia Crnojevic-Cherrier, campaign manager within the NGO. Even today, “thousands of elephants are poached every year” to fuel the ivory trade, she assures.
Some destroyed pieces are “magnificent objects,” and their destruction can “cause incomprehension,” noted Loïc Obled, deputy general director of the OFB. But “since ivory is not legal, we want to remove it from the market to dry up this market.”
According to the IFAW, museums in France are not very interested in receiving this type of object, because their collections are already full of them. However, the IFAW and the OFB had them evaluated by an independent expert to verify that the stock did not include objects said to be of “high cultural, artistic, or historical importance.” None ultimately fell into this category.
One of the “most lucrative” traffics
“Estimated at more than 20 billion dollars worldwide, the illegal trade in protected species of wild fauna and flora is one of the most lucrative types of trafficking” and very often emanates from “structured criminal organizations, with real strategy,” underlines the Secretary of State for Biodiversity, Sarah El Haïry.
