Chinese women detained in Kenya for possessing ivory

Jul 16, 2008, 14:08 GMT

Nairobi - Three Chinese nationals are being held in Kenya after being caught in possession of 2.2 kilos of processed ivory at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, the Kenyan Wildlife Service (KWS) said Wednesday.

The trio, two women and a man, were arrested as they attempted to fly to Zimbabwe without valid permits for the carved ivory trophies.

The United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) banned the international ivory trade in 1989.

However, CITES this week agreed to permit China to import some ivory from African government stockpiles.

The decision followed on from a one-off sale to Japan in 2006 that was agreed to allow South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe to sell their ivory stocks.

There is a large demand for ivory in both China and Japan and the KWS warned that the CITES decision could cause problems for Kenya's elephants.

'This decision...poses a great challenge to the conservation of Kenya's elephants because it is likely to fuel demand for ivory in China and other markets,' the KWS said in a statement.

The KWS said that since the beginning of the year almost 200 kilograms of ivory destined for the Asian markets have been seized at the airport in Nairobi.

Kenya's elephant population has almost doubled to 27,000 since CITES banned the ivory trade.

However, the herds have yet to fully recover from the widespread poaching that threatened Kenyan elephants with extinction.

There were an estimated 167,000 elephants in Kenya in 1973.