Q&A: Report Alleges Governments' Complicity in Tanzanian Elephant Poaching
Smugglers who dominate the illicit ivory trade from Africa to China said to use Zanzibar as their shipping port.
Released on the eve of the regional wildlife crime summit currently taking place in Arusha, Tanzania, EIA says some of the important findings include the level of corruption in Tanzania, the amount of ivory that's trafficked, and the role Zanzibar plays in the ivory trade.
But the most incendiary findings are the degree to which Chinese officials participate in the ivory trade. Before a March 2013 visit to Tanzania by China's President, Xi Jinping, the report notes, Chinese buyers "began purchasing thousands of kilos of ivory, later sent to China in diplomatic bags on the presidential plane."
According to the report, Tanzania lost more elephants to poaching between 2009 and 2013 than any other country in Africa—some 10,000 slaughtered there in
