From 1.2 million in the 1970s, the number of elephants roaming Africa has plunged to around 400 000. Poaching for ivory killed 30 000 a year from 2010 to 2012. The future for rhinos, now numbering less than 30 000, is even bleaker unless poaching is checked.
"The future of the African elephant and rhino is far from secure so long as demand for their products continues to exist,” said President Uhuru Kenyatta, adding any sale, even in legal domestic markets, increased risks to the animals.
Kenya would seek a "total ban on the trade in elephant ivory" at a meeting on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in South Africa later this year, the president told the "Giants Club" summit.
Signalling its commitment, Kenya will burn 105 tons of seized ivory on Saturday. CITES approved a ban on commercial trade in African elephant ivory in 1989, but since then has permitted one-off sales.
Conservationists want more prosecutions of poachers, the slashing of demand for ivory and rhino horn, most of which is in east Asia, and deeper cooperation across borders to fight poachers. "It has taken a crisis to get us to better collaboration, and the successes are still very fragile," said Iain Douglas-Hamilton, chief executive of the charity Save the Elephants.
In Kenya, 93 elephants were killed in 2015, down from 384 in 2012. But conservationists say the East African nation remains a transit point for poached wildlife parts from other countries.
Leaders from Uganda and Gabon attended the summit to outline efforts to curb illegal hunting by poachers, who in some regions have used belt-fed machine guns to mow down animals.
--reuters--