Bernadette Carreon – Fourth Estate Cooperative Contributor
Manila, Philippines (4E) – The Philippines destroyed five tons of elephant tusks on Friday.
The move has been hailed by environmental group as an effort to get rid of its image as one of the world’s worst hotspots for illegal African ivory trading.
According to Philippine media, the five tons of ivory came from a total of about 13 tonnes seized by customs officers since the mid 1990s, with the two biggest hauls at Manila’s seaport and international airport in 2005 and 2009.
The rest of the ivory, worth many millions of dollars on the black market, was stolen over the years.
The Philippines was in March named by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) as one of eight nations that fails to curb the illegal trade in elephant ivory.
The others were Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malaysia, Vietnam, China and Thailand, and they were warned they could face international sanctions on wildlife trading if they failed to take action.
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