LaraOnline
Ideal_Rock
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2008
- Messages
- 3,365
According to today's newspaper reports. When the last elephant and last lion is gone from the planet, I will have something important to explain to my children, and their children!!!
CHINESE diplomatic and military staff went on buying sprees for illegal ivory while on official visits to Tanzania, sending prices soaring.
Tens of thousands of elephants are slaughtered in Africa each year to feed rising Asian demand for ivory products, mostly from China, the continent’s biggest trading partner.
When Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Tanzania last year, members of his government and business delegation bought so much ivory that local prices doubled to $US700 per kilogram, the Britain-based Environmental Investigation Agency said in a report, citing traders in Dar es Salaam.
“When the guests come, the whole delegation, that’s the time when the business goes up,” a vendor named Suleiman said.
They alleged that the buyers took advantage of a lack of security checks for diplomatic visitors to smuggle their purchases back to China on Mr Xi’s plane.
Similar sales were made on a trip by former president Hu Jintao, the report said, and Chinese embassy staff were also described as “major buyers”.
A Chinese navy visit to Tanzania last year by vessels returning from anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden “prompted a surge in business for Dar es Salaam-based ivory traders”, it said.
A Chinese national, Yu Bo, was arrested during the naval visit as he attempted to enter Dar es Salaam port in a truck containing 81 elephant tusks, hidden under wooden carvings, which he planned to deliver to two mid-ranking naval officers, the EIA said. Yu was convicted in March and sentenced to 20 years in jail.
Tanzania is a key ally of China in East Africa, and its President, Jakaya Kikwete, signed deals worth $US1.7 billion on a visit to Beijing last month.
Tanzania had about 142,000 elephants when Mr Kikwete took office in 2005, the EIA said, adding that by next year the population is likely to have plummeted to about 55,000 as a result of poaching.
Almost all ivory sales were banned in 1989 by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, to which China and Tanzania are signatories.
Meng Xianlin, a Chinese forestry administration official who oversees Beijing’s commitments under CITES, SAID that the claims made in the EIA’s report were “baloney”.
“I have not heard of such a matter. Do not hype this up.”
China has carried out several arrests of smugglers, along with a televised incineration of seized ivory.
AFP
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/chinese-delegations-demand-for-ivory-doubled-price-during-xi-visit/story-e6frg6so-1227115111056
CHINESE diplomatic and military staff went on buying sprees for illegal ivory while on official visits to Tanzania, sending prices soaring.
Tens of thousands of elephants are slaughtered in Africa each year to feed rising Asian demand for ivory products, mostly from China, the continent’s biggest trading partner.
When Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Tanzania last year, members of his government and business delegation bought so much ivory that local prices doubled to $US700 per kilogram, the Britain-based Environmental Investigation Agency said in a report, citing traders in Dar es Salaam.
“When the guests come, the whole delegation, that’s the time when the business goes up,” a vendor named Suleiman said.
They alleged that the buyers took advantage of a lack of security checks for diplomatic visitors to smuggle their purchases back to China on Mr Xi’s plane.
Similar sales were made on a trip by former president Hu Jintao, the report said, and Chinese embassy staff were also described as “major buyers”.
A Chinese navy visit to Tanzania last year by vessels returning from anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden “prompted a surge in business for Dar es Salaam-based ivory traders”, it said.
A Chinese national, Yu Bo, was arrested during the naval visit as he attempted to enter Dar es Salaam port in a truck containing 81 elephant tusks, hidden under wooden carvings, which he planned to deliver to two mid-ranking naval officers, the EIA said. Yu was convicted in March and sentenced to 20 years in jail.
Tanzania is a key ally of China in East Africa, and its President, Jakaya Kikwete, signed deals worth $US1.7 billion on a visit to Beijing last month.
Tanzania had about 142,000 elephants when Mr Kikwete took office in 2005, the EIA said, adding that by next year the population is likely to have plummeted to about 55,000 as a result of poaching.
Almost all ivory sales were banned in 1989 by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, to which China and Tanzania are signatories.
Meng Xianlin, a Chinese forestry administration official who oversees Beijing’s commitments under CITES, SAID that the claims made in the EIA’s report were “baloney”.
“I have not heard of such a matter. Do not hype this up.”
China has carried out several arrests of smugglers, along with a televised incineration of seized ivory.
AFP
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/chinese-delegations-demand-for-ivory-doubled-price-during-xi-visit/story-e6frg6so-1227115111056
300x240.png)