NAIROBI: Environment cabinet secretary Judi Wakhungu yesterday announced that 137.679 tonnes of elephant ivory and 1.519 tonnes of rhino horns are being held in the country. The stock-taking exercise which took 45 days across 20 inventory sites counted 25,052 pieces of ivory majority of which are raw ivory and 1,248 pieces of rhino horns.
Wakhungu launched the exercise in July 21 as mandated by Wildlife Conservation and Management Act 2013. The KWS under her ministry mandates an audit of government trophy stockpile undertaken every year and results published in the Kenya Gazette.
“All ivory in custody of KWS (both normal stocks and court exhibits) and those seized and kept under Police custody specifically in Mombasa Port were inventoried,” she said at KWS headquarters yesterday. Wakhungu said samples were taken from representative elephant ivory stocks and all rhino horns for DNA profiling.
In March President Uhuru Kenyatta promised to destroy all ivory stock piles by the end of the year. Wakhungu said she will publish guidelines on how ivory will be destroyed once she gazettes the stockpile.
