This archive report was first published on 5 September 2019.
On September 5, 2019, Tanzanian authorities made a significant breakthrough in their fight against poaching, arresting a man with a large stash of ivory estimated to have come from around 117 elephants.
The suspect, who had been sought by authorities since 2016, was found to be in possession of 338 pieces of elephant tusk and 75 whole tusks, according to Minister of Natural Resources Hamisi Kigwangalla.
He was arrested along with seven alleged accomplices, and the tusks are believed to have originated from Tanzania and Mozambique.
"Until his arrest on Tuesday, he was unable to move this stock, because we have become extremely vigilant," said Kigwangalla.
"I am giving a period of grace of one month for any person in possession of elephant tusks to hand them in to authorities without facing prosecution," he added.
Since 2016, around 1,000 poachers have been arrested in Tanzania, whose elephant population has plummeted 60 percent between 2009 and 2014 due to poaching.
Earlier this year, a Tanzanian court sentenced Chinese citizen Yang Fenlan, known as the "Ivory Queen," to 15 years in jail for her role in trafficking tusks from over 400 elephants.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the African elephant population has fallen by 110,000 over the past decade to just 415,000 animals, largely due to poaching fueled by demand in Asia for ivory jewelry and ornamentation.
