Nairobi - Three Chinese nationals are being held in Kenya
after being caught in possession of 2.2 kilos of processed ivory at
Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, the Kenyan Wildlife Service
(KWS) said Wednesday.
The trio, two women and a man, were arrested as they attempted to
fly to Zimbabwe without valid permits for the carved ivory trophies.
The United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species (CITES) banned the international ivory trade in 1989.
However, CITES this week agreed to permit China to import some
ivory from African government stockpiles.
The decision followed on from a one-off sale to Japan in 2006 that
was agreed to allow South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe to
sell their ivory stocks.
There is a large demand for ivory in both China and Japan and the
KWS warned that the CITES decision could cause problems for Kenya's
elephants.
'This decision...poses a great challenge to the conservation of
Kenya's elephants because it is likely to fuel demand for ivory in
China and other markets,' the KWS said in a statement.
The KWS said that since the beginning of the year almost 200
kilograms of ivory destined for the Asian markets have been seized at
the airport in Nairobi.
Kenya's elephant population has almost doubled to 27,000 since
CITES banned the ivory trade.
However, the herds have yet to fully recover from the widespread
poaching that threatened Kenyan elephants with extinction.
There were an estimated 167,000 elephants in Kenya in 1973.
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