Philippines authorities seize more elephant tusks smuggled from Dar
May 19, 2009


THISDAY REPORTER
Dar es Salaam

CUSTOMS officials in the Philippines have seized a shipment of elephant tusks from Tanzania estimated to be worth more than $1m (approx. 1.4bn/-).

Customs police in Manila said they made the catch after inspecting a shipment of purported moulding machines which arrived on March 1 from Tanzania.

The inspection is understood to have been based on a tip that the contents of the shipment were falsely declared.

’’When we opened the container, the tip turned out to be true,’’ said the Philippines Customs Police Chief, Joey Yuchongco. ’’The shipment actually contained elephant tusks.’’

Yuchongco said his office was already coordinating with the Philippines department of environment and natural resources on what to do with the confiscated tusks.

He noted that such tusks are commonly used in the manufacture of statues, figurines, and image replicas of saints, all of which have a huge market in the predominantly-Catholic Philippines.

The Philippines Bureau of Customs (BoC) intercepted the tusks which a local importer tried to smuggle from Tanzania through the Manila port.

Yuchongco said the government trophies were stacked in sacks inside a 20-footer container steel van that the importer, identified as 210 Enterprises, had abandoned at the port’s South harbour since March 1.

He said the BoC received information that the van had illegal cargo.

The registered importer, he said, had declared that the van was loaded with blow moulding machines from Dar es Salaam.

’’But when we checked on the abandoned van last week, we were able to ascertain that this was a false declaration, and that it contained elephant tusks,’’ Yuchongo told reporters in Manila.

Elephant tusks are known to be the primary source of ivory, a white material used in making religious statues, piano keys, and other expensive products.

According to Yuchongco, the trading, buying, and selling of such tusks is internationally illegal as it usually presupposes the wanton killing of elephants.

In March this year, authorities in Vietnam announced the confiscation of similar jumbo tusks also smuggled from Tanzania, worth a whopping $29.41m (approx.40bn/-).

As Vietnamese officials moved to auction the 6,232 kilogrammes of tusks smuggled out of the country, both the Tanzanian police and wildlife authorities in Dar es Salaam said at the time that they were unaware about the consignment.

And the latest reports of a fresh seizure of huge consignments of elephant tusks from Tanzania by customs officials in foreign lands are yet another clear indication that the wanton smuggling of ivory out of the country is continuing unabated.

Elephants tusks smuggling: DCI springs into action

May 20, 2009


SAYUNI KIMARO
Dar es Salaam

POLICE in the country are investigating a suspected international smuggling ring involving the rampant illegal export of elephant tusks from Tanzania, the Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI), Robert Manumba, has said.

The investigation follows a recent spate of media reports on huge shipments of prime jumbo tusks originating from Tanzania being seized by customs officials on arrival in various foreign lands.

The shipments are now suspected to be part of a multi-million-dollar ivory smuggling network also behind the increasingly wanton slaughter of hundreds of elephants in the country’s national parks.

Commissioner of Police Manumba told THISDAY in an interview in Dar es Salaam yesterday that the police was now officially following up the reports of a rise in ivory smuggling out of the country.

’’Actually, I had no idea about the smuggling operation...we have learned about it this morning (yesterday) from the news. We will be making a follow-up and contacting our counterparts in those countries where the seizures have been reported to have taken place,’’ the DCI stated.

He was responding to a front-page report in the THISDAY edition of Tuesday this week, on a shipment of jumbo tusks worth more than $1m (approx. 1.4bn/-) being seized by customs officials in Manila, the Philippines.

The trophies were reported to have been hidden inside a container full of purported blow moulding machines, which arrived from Tanzania last March.

According to Philippines customs officials quoted by the local media in that country, the container was subjected to a formal customs inspection on the basis of a tip-off that its contents had been falsely declared.

’’When we opened the container, the tip turned out to be true. The shipment actually contained elephant tusks,’’ Philippines customs police chief Joey Yuchongco was quoted as saying.

He said the registered importer of the shipment, identified as 210 Enterprises, had abandoned the container at the Manila port’s south harbour since March 1 this year.

Elephant tusks are known to be the primary source of ivory, a white material used in making religious statues, piano keys, and other expensive products.

It was also reported in March this year that authorities in Vietnam � not far from Philippines � had announced the confiscation of a much larger shipment of jumbo tusks similarly smuggled from Tanzania.

The consignment seized in Vietnam was reported to be worth a whopping $29.41m (approx.40bn/-).

EDITORIAL: Joint measures to curb carnage of tuskers from Tanzania needed

May 20, 2009

EDITOR
DAR ES SALAAM

TANZANIA is losing too many tuskers to the Far East which clearly indicates that poaching in our nation is on the rise. Without doubt this is not acceptable.The poachers are surely taking advantage of what appears to be loose laws to protect our elephants.

The last incident has raised a number of regrettable issues. The first issue is that legal measures to take care of our elephants are not as effective as they should be. The onus of protecting our elephants lies with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tanzanians who live close to the huge animals.

We agree it is not easy to protect all elephants in Tanzania because they have the freedom to roam the range in search of food. We suggest that measures be taken immediately to reduce poaching in our nation. At the same time the conveyance of tusks by road should be made as difficult as possible.

The checking of the tusks in containers at the Dar es Salaam port should be as thorough as humanly possible. Once conveyance of tusks is made extremely difficult, the rate of poaching will eventually fall dramatically.

The majority of Tanzanians do not use tusks to carve bangles or statues of saints and figurines as is the case in the Phillippines where the cargo, worth more than $1m, arrived.

Last March, Vietnamese authorities announced they came across a consignment of tusks, worth more than $29m, smuggled from Tanzania. In a layman’s language, there is a big demand for ivory and its by-products in the Phillippines and Vietnam.

We therefore suggest that any cargo destined for the Far East should be checked thoroughly even before it reaches the Dar es Salaam port. And at the port, customs officers should be extra vigilant when containers are being loaded onto ships.

Once such local conveyance of tusks is blunted, poaching will significantly drop for neither many local ethnic groups kill elephants, eat elephant meat nor make piano keys.

It is our belief that once the problem is solved at the source, it would diminish the demand for tusks. Normally, containers are not loaded at any place along the coast because it is impossible for large ships to anchor in shallow seawaters.

It is our belief that once our natural resources and police officers become more vigilant in saving our elephants and other forest by-products, the problem can be solved.

Trading in tusks is internationally illegal. Therefore if governments in the Far East abide by such laws, poaching of tusks will be significantly reduced.

It is possible for Tanzania to work with the Far East governments to reduce or stop the smuggling of tusks from Tanzania, East Africa or any other part of Africa. It is our belief that pianos without white keys can still make beautiful music even if the white keys are made of plastic material.

Tanzanian elephant tusks haul in Philippines valued at almost 3bn/-

May 21, 2009

THISDAY REPORTER & AGENCIES
Dar es Salaam

A RECENTLY-CONFISCATED consignment of elephant tusks smuggled from Tanzania to the Philippines has now been confirmed to weigh 3.5 tonnes, with authorities in Manila ordering the suspension of licence and blacklisting of the consignee and broker that facilitated the illegal shipment.

Philippine customs authorities yesterday described the haul as one of the largest such consignments found in the country.

The consignment arrived in Manila in March this year and immediately drew suspicion because it was said to contain plastic, said customs police chief Nestorio Gualberto.

’’What kind of plastic materials does Tanzania produce?’’ he said. ’’We suspected right away that these were elephant tusks.’’

Officials said some of the tusks weighed as much as 25 kilogrammes each. They have now valued the consignment at over $2m (2.8bn/-), although that appears to be a conservative estimate given that in some countries prices are at or above $1,500 per kg.

The consignment was initially thought to be worth around $1m.

While there is an illegal market in the Philippines for religious icons made of ivory, officials suspect the tusks were bound for China, where there is thriving demand.

There, the tusks are mainly manufactured into chopsticks or mahjong chips.

Three years ago, about 6 tonnes of elephant tusks from Zambia were also seized in Manila’s container port.

The Tanzanian tusks � packed in boxes and hidden under sacks filled with plastic sheets and scraps � came from adult and juvenile elephants, Gualberto said.

He said a Philippine brokerage company and the consignee face charges of violating Philippine wildlife conservation and protection laws, as well as an international trade ban on ivory. The charges carry a penalty of up to six years imprisonment plus a fine of 1 million pesos ($20,000), he said.

The tusks will be held in custody by the Philippines environment department until the court cases are concluded, he added.

The size of the Philippine ivory market is unknown, but items such as piano keys, figurines, religious images and other items made of the material are relatively common.

Trade in ivory was banned under a 1989 UN Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species that has helped in the recovery of the elephant population in several African countries.

Philippines Bureau of Customs commissioner Napoleon Morales said the consignee, identified as 210 Enterprises, along with customs broker Marilyn Pacheco, are both liable for the two separate shipments of elephant tusks from Tanzania that arrived at the port of Manila on March 1 and 5 this year from Dar es Salaam.

The shipments were initially wrongly declared as blow moulding machines and recycled waste plastics.

Morales said the consignee and broker will be charged for violating the Tariff and Customs Code of the Philippines (TCCP) and Republic Act 9147, also known as the Wildlife Resources Conservation Act, and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

The illegal shipments were inspected and an inventory conducted yesterday morning by Morales and Philippines Environment Secretary Joselito ’Lito’ Atienza.

The seized items will be turned over to the Philippines department of environment and natural resources (DENR) for safe-keeping, Morales said.