- Sep 14, 2011
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US to destroy 6-ton stockpile of illegal ivory this week - NBC News.com
Barack Obama Destroys US Ivory - Business Insider
Philippines Ivory Burn: 5 Tons Of Elephant Tusks Destroyed By Government (PHOTOS)
More photos at HuffPo link.
Ivory stockpile to be publicly destroyed as Obama seeks to end illegal trade | Environment | The Guardian
Surely this is an issue that both sides can and do agree on.
Thank you, Mr. President.
"Destroying this ivory tells criminals who engage in poaching and trafficking that the United States will take all available measures to disrupt and prosecute those who prey on and profit from the deaths of these magnificent animals," FWS officials said in a fact sheet.
Barack Obama Destroys US Ivory - Business Insider
On 14 November, at Barack Obama's instruction, and in front of visiting dignitaries and television cameras, every last intricately carved and high-dollar item will be fed into the jaws of an industrial strength rock-crushing machine and smashed to splinters....
But it may be too late. Two decades after an international ban on ivory sales, an explosion in wildlife trafficking has once again brought African elephants to the brink of extinction. Nearly 100 African elephants are killed every day for their tusks to feed a huge demand for ivory trinkets from newly wealthy buyers in Asia who see ivory as a status symbol.
Philippines Ivory Burn: 5 Tons Of Elephant Tusks Destroyed By Government (PHOTOS)
More photos at HuffPo link.
Ivory stockpile to be publicly destroyed as Obama seeks to end illegal trade | Environment | The Guardian
Ivory stockpile to be publicly destroyed as Obama seeks to end illegal trade
TV cameras to record smashing of tusks and intricately carved items but African elephants are already on brink of extinction ...
US security officials say the global trade in illegal ivory has grown to $10bn (about £6.2bn) a year just behind drugs and human trafficking. The huge profit potential has also turned ivory into an important line of financing for terrorist networks such as al-Shabaab, the al-Qaida affiliate that carried out September's attack on the Westgate shopping centre in Nairobi.
"This is not the kind of poaching that we have dealt with in the past," said Dan Ashe, the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency leading the US fight against wildlife trafficking. "It's syndicated and sophisticated criminal organisations that are driving the trade."
Surely this is an issue that both sides can and do agree on.
Thank you, Mr. President.