Assam to initiate major conservation initiative by burning Rhino Horn

[Guest guest]

Echoes of the Kenyan bonfire in 1989 and the Indian bonfire in April 1991?

This is also in consonance with Kenya's proposal at this year's CITES

conference.

 

Rhino horn burning to bust a myth

- Move aimed at telling poachers that body part has no medicinal value ROOPAK

GOSWAMI A forest guard with a horn and nails of a rhino killed during the

floods at Kaziranga. Picture by Eastern Projections

 

Guwahati, Feb. 22: Finally, Assam is fighting fire with fire.

 

Nearly 1,500 rhino horns — lying in different treasuries and strongrooms

across the state — will be burnt next month, possibly in the presence of

members of international conservation agencies.

 

The public burning of such a huge quantity of rhino horns — which ironically

is the biggest enemy of the pre-historic and endangered mammal — was aimed

at sending the message that the state “was fully committed” to rhino

conservation.

 

The most important message will, however, go out to the clandestine wildlife

traders and believers of traditional medicines: the rhino horn really does

not have any value in monetary terms and does not have any medicinal values

as believed.

 

The rhino horns have been lying in treasuries since 1978 when its sale in

Assam was banned.

 

S. Chand, chief wildlife warden of Assam, told The Telegraph today that the

government had issued a notification stating that committees for each

district had been constituted for disposal of all rhino horns in possession

of the forest department except those required as exhibits in court cases.

 

“The decision is in full consonance with wildlife laws of the country and

international rules,” he added.

 

There are at present 1,571 rhino horns lying in various treasuries and

strongrooms of divisional forest officers across the state.

 

The horns are lying in treasuries in 10 districts of the state — Jorhat,

Nagaon, Kamrup, Sonitpur, Darrang, Lakhimpur, Nalbari, Golaghat, Barpeta and

Kokrajhar. The eastern Assam wildlife division, which covers Kaziranga, has

the maximum stock of rhino horns.

 

The forest department has already informed the Centre about the decision to

burn the horns.

 

Chand said a foolproof process was now being chalked out in consultation

with experts on proper disposal of the ashes after the rhino horns are

burnt.

 

“Once the process is finalised, guidelines will be circulated to the

officers concerned to go ahead,” he said.

 

Bibhab Talukdar, the secretary general of wildlife NGO Aaranyak said the

decision taken by the state government “was a progressive step taken to send

a strong signal to the international community”.

 

“The whole event of burning of horns should be transparent and

videographed,” he added.

 

The Wildlife Protection Act says that “where any meat, uncured trophy,

specified plant or part or derivative thereof is seized, under the

provisions of this section, the assistant director of wildlife preservation

or any other officer of a gazetted rank authorised by him on his behalf or

the chief wildlife warden or the authorised officer may arrange for the

disposal of the same in such a manner as may be prescribed”.

 

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna

and Flora (CITES) has asked the member countries to declare the status of

any stocks of rhinoceros horns and derivatives.

 

A comprehensive declaration form has been given in which the CITES has asked

the countries to outline the policy on the disposal of seized horns (and

products), summary of how rhino horns and product stocks are marked

registered and secured. Besides, it has sought reports on the security and

storage, registration and audits, trade and possession controls, rhino horns

and other raw horn material in state possession and summary of horns sold

(internally or externally), stolen or destroyed since 2000.

 

The rhino horns are either seized from poachers and smugglers or collected

from carcasses of rhinos which died a natural death.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100223/jsp/northeast/story_12137928.jsp

 

KENYA, IN GESTURE, BURNS IVORY TUSKS By JANE PERLEZ, Special to The New

York Times Published: July 19, 1989

 

- Sign in to Recommend

- Twitter

- Sign In to

E-Mail<http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http://www.nytimes.comhttp://www.ny\

times.com/1989/07/19/world/kenya-in-gesture-burns-ivory-tusks.html>

-

Print<http://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/19/world/kenya-in-gesture-burns-ivory-tusks\

..html?pagewanted=1 & pagewanted=print>

 

 

<http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_click.html?type=goto & opzn & page=www.nytimes.c\

om/archive/article & pos=Frame4A & sn2=fcaa612b/707ce3ce & sn1=8aaaf1af/81cc9be6 & camp=\

foxsearch2010_emailtools_1225564c_nyt5 & ad=Cyrus_120x60_01.25 & goto=http%3A%2F%2Fw\

ww%2Efoxsearchlight%2Ecom%2Fcyrus>

 

*NAIROBI, Kenya, July 18— *President Daniel arap Moi ignited 12 tons of

elephant tusks today in a gesture to persuade the world to halt the ivory

trade.

 

Soon after Mr. Moi lit the 20-foot pile, artfully arranged by a pyrotechnist

who specializes in creating fires for movie sets, flames roared upward,

blackening the tusks. Experts said the blaze, fed by hundreds of gallons of

gasoline, would reduce the tusks to charcoal.

 

Cabinet ministers, diplomats, white farmers from the highlands and

conservationists came out to the Nairobi National Park to see the show. The

fire was intended as a statement of the Government's political will to stop

the poaching that has reduced Kenya's elephant herds to 17,000 from 65,000

in 1979.

 

''To stop the poacher, the trader must be also be stopped and to stop the

trader, the final buyer must be convinced not to buy ivory,'' President Moi

said. ''I appeal to people all over the world to stop buying ivory.'' Fear

for Tourism

 

Underlying the call for a ban is the worry that tourism, which is the

country's biggest foreign-exchange earner, will fall off if the elephant

disappears.

 

President Moi said Kenya had decided to burn the stored ivory because it

could not urge people not to buy ivory jewelery or carved ornaments and at

the same time allow ivory's sale.

 

The tusks, each marked for weight and size, represented more than 2,000

elephants shot during the last four years. On the open market, the tusks

could have brought about $3 million. Most were recovered by the Wildlife

Conservation Department from elephants that poachers had shot but left

behind, said Iain Douglas Hamilton, a leading authority on elephants. ''But

this is a tiny fraction of what was killed,'' Mr. Douglas Hamilton said.

 

The cache of ivory, which had been in a Government storehouse in Nairobi

after collection by game wardens, told a lot about Kenya's elephants, he

said. ''There is a dearth of big tusks and a heavy preponderence of

female,'' he said. ''The males were largely wiped out years ago'' because of

larger tusks. Strategy for a Ban

 

The burning, apparently the idea of the new director of the Kenyan Wildlife

Conservation Department, Dr. Richard E. Leakey, was also organized to

emphasize Kenya's determination to win a formal ban on ivory trade at a

meeting in Switzerland in October.

 

There, both ivory producing and consuming countries, who are members of the

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, will decide whether

to declare the elephant an endangered species. Such a declaration would ban

trade in elephant products: ivory, skin, meat and hair. South Africa has

already said it will not abide by such a ban because its own conservation

measures are adequate.

 

Wildlife officials in Zimbabwe and South Africa, where elephant herds are

better protected and the proceeds from sales go back into conservation,

described the bonfire as a publicity stunt.

 

Dr. Leakey did not deny that the bonfire was arranged to seek publicity -the

Washington firm of Black, Manafort & Stone, Kenya's new lobbying

representative in Washington, sent a representative to help organize the

event - but he said he was convinced the burning of ivory would generate

funds abroad far outweighing the $3 million worth of tusks.

A version of this article appeared in print on July 19, 1989, on page A5

of the New York edition.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/19/world/kenya-in-gesture-burns-ivory-tusks.html?\

pagewanted=1