The fight against poaching of elephants (and rhinos)will not be won by just arresting or killing the poachers. If we are to win this war, we must look at the whole value chain and put our efforts at dealing with the actors fueling the trade of illegal ivory. Chief among this is the huge demand in China for ivory products. Just to illustrate the same, a recent covert study by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA)(http://www.eia-international.org) indicates that 'the demand for ivory products in China is so huge that even if all the existing elephants were killed, it would not satisfy demand for just ivory chopsticks alone!'. There was also an indication of high rates of elephant poaching in Kenya in areas where there were Chinese camps set up by Chinese construction companies etc. They seem to be doing more than just constructing roads it seems! We must petition the Kenyan government to send a protest letter to the Chinese government on this matter as well as deliver a signed petition to the Chinese Embassy in Nairobi indicating our discontent with the same.

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