英闻天下——366 Ivory Trade Surges in Kenya

 　　The ivory trade will be back on the agenda at this year's Convention for the International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES), which opened in Bangkok on March 3.

 
　　Paul Muya, deputy spokesperson for the Kenya Wildlife Service, says they hope that their careful monitoring of the animals will help strengthen their case at CITES.
 
　　"We want to document our operations are scientifically based and ensure that CITES adopts our proposals to sustain the moratorium 1 on elephant poaching and trade in illegal ivory until such a time that CITES will recommend measures we need to take on our elephant populations in African range states and world range states at the coming COP 16 (United Nations Climate Change Conference) meeting."
 
　　Last year Kenya counted 384 elephants killed and this year alone, the country has already lost 40, according to the Kenya Wildlife Service.
 
　　There has been a marked increase in poaching for ivory in recent years, driven by rising demand and rising prices in Asia, with 34 tons of illegal ivory seized around the world last year, the biggest total since records began.
 
　　Frank Pope is a Save the Elephants Chief Operations officer and he is concerned with the alarming increase in poaching.
 
　　"We saw a crisis, a virtual apocalypse of Africa's elephants in the 70's and 80's when we lost perhaps half of the continent's elephants and the situation we face today is in many ways graver and that is for two reasons.
 
　　"Firstly, the supply is that much smaller, we've got between 400 and 600 thousand elephants left in Africa and secondly 2 because the demand is that much greater."
 
　　Pope says that the growing population and economy in the Far East is partly to blame for the increasing demand for ivory.
 
　　"In the Far East the demand is huge because populations are expanding fast and people are getting richer and ivory is a luxury commodity it is often used for gift giving and to say thank you and please would you do me a favour and with a rising middle class this is happening more and more and the problem we face is not insurmountable with challenging this demand because, it is largely based on ignorance, there is a lot of education that can be done and sharing of awareness 3 with countries in the Far East to say ivory does not fall off elephants, you cant 4 pull it out and keep the elephant alive and let the tasks re-grow."
 
　　Kenya's population is growing at a rate of 1 million new people every year, so it will require solutions on many levels to balance the needs of this growing population and the long-term survival of the country's wildlife, so vital to Kenya's economy.
 
　　For CRI, I'm Wang Xiao.