Ivory on flight to Singapore seized

Ugandan wildlife authorities have pleaded with Asian countries to prevent the trade of illegal ivory, after a series of shipments destined for Asia were discovered by airport customs.

On 14 July, 912 kilograms of ivory in 48 boxes were impounded by officials after being found at Entebbe International Airport, Uganda, onboard an Ethiopian Airlines flight bound for Singapore. The contraband was worth over 3 million Singapore dollars.

Fortunately, the shipment’s lack of proper documents raised suspicions with the aviation police.

In a related case last month, more than 600 kilograms of ivory were seized at the same airport, also destined for Singapore.

Ugandan authorities said they are becoming increasingly concerned about the market for illegal wildlife trade. They have sent an appeal to Asian countries – the likely final destination for most of Africa’s ivory – to team up and pursue the criminals behind the illegal trade.

Said Margaret Kasumba from the Uganda Wildlife Authority,

“I appeal to our colleagues in the Asian countries to put in more effort. They’ve been working with us but they need to put in more effort to ensure that whenever the criminals leave this country, if we do not get them they should arrest them, and we do a joint investigation.”

A recent report released in Kenya, found that Hong Kong’s ivory market is helping push African elephants towards extinction. More than 100,000 elephants were killed between 2010 and 2013.

While Uganda has been a success story in fighting elephant poaching, especially through increased patrols, neighbouring countries like Kenya and Congo are witnessing the reducing populations of wild elephants at the hands of lethal poachers. And many of these poachers use Uganda as a conduit to get the ivory out of Africa and into Asia.

(All images - credit: Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons licence)