Close to three tons of elephant ivory were seized by Vietnamese authorities in the central province of Thanh Hoa on Saturday.
The illegally poached ivory was hidden among boxes of fruit on its way to Hanoi, reports Emirati news outlet The National.
"This is the largest seizure of smuggled ivory ever in Thanh Hoa province," wrote VnExpress, quoting a local police report. Vietnamese authorities carried out similar seizures of illegally poached and trafficked ivory in 2013 and 2014.
The suspicious-looking truck was pulled over on National Highway 1A in Quang Phong Commune, Quang Xuong District. The driver, Nguyen Truong Son, was unable to provide paperwork proving his cargo’s legitimate origin. The Tropical Biological Institute under the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology tested the confiscated items and confirmed that they were ivory tusks, Tuoi Tre reports. The elephant tusks originated in South Africa.
This was the latest incident in Vietnam’s long fight against the illegal wildlife trade. Late last year, the Vietnamese government destroyed a stockpile of both ivory tusks and rhino horns, a symbolic act meant to both de-legitimize the trade and deliver a message to poachers and traffickers, reports German outlet DW News.
The global trade of elephant ivory has been outlawed in most countries since 1989 in response to the plummeting population of African elephants caused by poaching. The endangered animals' numbers have fallen from millions in the mid-20th century to some 415,000 presently, with an average of 30,000 elephants being killed each year, according to The National.
Although the ivory trade in Vietnam has been outlawed since 1992, the country is still one of the prime markets for ivory, which is used as home decoration and medicinal ingredient, though there is no scientific basis for this.
[Photo via DW]
