The Department of Environment and Natural Resources began crushing more than five tons of confiscated elephant tusks on Friday, a move that DENR Secretary Ramon Paje said showed the country’s commitment against the illegal trade in endangered species.
The destruction of the tusks, estimated to be worth around PHP250 million, was met with some resistance. Agham party-list Representative Angelo Palmones suggested donating the tusks to schools and museums as a teaching aid. Others, especially on social media and online comment threads said the tusks should instead be sold and the money used to protect elephants from poachers.
Selling ivory is illegal in the Philippines, which is a signatory to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, and Paje said the tusks would be destroyed to make sure the confiscated ivory will not find its way into the black market.
The government will keep some of the tusks as evidence in smuggling cases and to help train Customs and Environment personnel to identify ivory.
[JUICEBOX_GALLERY]
Some of the tusks, smuggled in from Africa and intercepted by authorities in 2005 and 2009, had already been stolen through the years, making destruction of the remaining tusks imperative.
The tusks, some thicker and longer than an average adult’s arm and some much, much smaller, were taken from slaughtered African elephants. Paje said the Philippines, a trans-shipment point for smuggled ivory, “will not be a part to this massacre and refuse to be a conduit to the cycle of killing.”
The tusks, crushed by a backhoe and a road roller, will be gathered and then cremated.
The Philippines is the first country in Asia to destroy its stockpile of ivory.
—
Photos: Veejay Villafranca
