Corporate News
A Total service station worker holds one of the 25,000 elephant tusks
incinerated over the weekend. Total Kenya donated 20,000 litres of
fuel. PHOTO | COURTESY
By MARYANNE GICOBI
In Summary
Oil marketer Total Kenya donated fuel worth Sh1 million that was used to torch an estimated five per cent of the world’s seized ivory last Saturday.
The event was graced by several heads of state, renowned conservationists and celebrities.
The 105 tonnes of ivory and 1.35 tonnes of rhino
horn were set ablaze by a mixture of diesel and kerosene sprayed under
the tusks with pipes and jets to fuel the fire.
The mixture of kerosene and diesel fuel is highly
inflammable and offered the amount of heat that was needed to reduce the
pile into ashes.
The system was designed by Robin Hollister, who
used it in 1989 when the then President Daniel Moi led the burning of a
12,000-kilogramme stockpile.
Hollister waited for President Uhuru Kenyatta to
put a flame on the stack of ivory and then switched on a spout of fuel
that ignited the stockpile resulting in a huge blaze that got the
incineration going. This was the fourth time Kenya was burning ivory.
The first ivory bonfire was led by President Moi in
1989, President Mwai Kibaki burnt a stockpile in 2011 and President
Uhuru Kenyatta last year.
The government hopes Saturday’s event will be a
firm statement against poaching which threatens to wipe out the
remaining elephants and rhinos in the Kenyan wild.
On Thursday, Mr Kenyatta, British actress Elizabeth
Hurley and dozens of African dignitaries and leaders attended the
Giants Club Summit in Laikipia to discuss how to protect Africa’s
remaining elephants.
Total Kenya has annually held The Rhino Charge
event to raise money to construct an electric fence surrounding the
Aberdares, Mt Kenya and Mau Eburu forests to protect elephants and
rhinos from poachers
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