Smoke fills the sky as Kenyan rangers stand guard over the world's largest-ever ivory burn.
Kenya Sets Ablaze 105 Tons of Ivory
The record-setting burn is meant to send a message to the world that ivory has no value and that its trade should be banned.
Nairobi, KenyaUhuru Kenyatta, the president of Kenya, bent over to light a tray of fuel, the eyes of a thousand observers fixated on his back. Looming in front of him was a massive tower of ivory—one of 11 starkly white pyres set up here at Nairobi National Park, a sprawling wildlife-filled oasis in Kenya’s capital city. Doused in fuel, smoke quickly began to billow from each of the intricately assembled piles. Bright orange blazes soon overtook them, blackening the formerly pristine pyramids.
By the time the last flames flickered out Saturday night, Kenya reduced 105 tons of elephant ivory and 1.35 tons of rhino horn to smoldering ash—the final remains of some 6,500 elephants and 450 rhinos killed for their tusks
