On the Trail - Robin des Bois

motorway for several hours to protest against the
suspicions which they judged to be unfounded.
The authority in charge of protecting the forest of
Anchetty banned the media present from taking
photos and videos of the elephant’s carcase.
Chinese workers denounced a hunter from the village
of Akana. Quite near, the eco-guards found a
putrefying elephant carcass.
Poaching of 3 elephants
Mbarangandu, Region of Ruvuma, Tanzania
September 2013
3 elephants from Mbarangandu in Tanzania were
killed and their tusks removed in an area where
wildlife is managed with the participation of the
village communities (Wildlife Management Area).
Seizure of 2 leopard skins, 6 elephant tusks, 57
ivory products and 6 trunks
Weihai, Shandong Province, China
September 2013
Ivory, the star of the show, is increasingly accompanied
by elephant trunks as a supporting act.
© General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China
Arrest of a man for trafficking in elephant tusks
Edea, Littoral Region, Cameroon
September 2013
He was arrested by the authorities near Douala
trying to sell elephants’ teeth other than the upper
incisors, i.e. the tusks.
Seizure of 116kg of ivory objects and 2,5 kg of
pangolin scales
Entebbe international Airport, Kampala District,
Uganda
September 2013
The 2 Chinese nationals pretended that they had
bought everything in the street without realising
that they were acting illegally. However, one of
them had taken the trouble to stuff 100 to 200 pangolin
scales in his socks. The worked ivory was in
the form of necklaces and bracelets. A Ugandan observer
remarked on the increase in the trafficking of
carved objects. Is this because skilled workers from
Hong Kong are basing themselves in Africa?
Arrest of 14 Chinese nationals for poaching an
elephant and a pangolin
Akana, Ogooué-Ivindo Province, Gabon
September 2013
The Chinese employees of the Emirates Bois Sarl Forestry
Company were not only interested in okoumé
(Aucoumea klaineana) the main forest resource
in Gabon. At breakfast, they enjoyed a stew of elephant’s
trunks. In their site facilities the Gabon National
Parks Agency discovered fresh and smoked
elephant meat, sections of tusks to be transformed
into jewellery, ivory bracelets and necklaces, and
pangolin scales. The tools used for transforming
the raw ivory into carved ivory were not found. The
© ANPN
Trunk lovers © ANPN
In 2009, the Chinese company Honest Timber
bought the French Company Plysorol that runs a
factory for okoumé transformation and who owns
a timber concession of 580 000 in Gabon.
Honest Timber Gabon made pledged to garanty the
factory’s future with investments and to obtain 500
000 more hectares from the Gabon government. In
Gabon forests, there is okoumé, padouk (Pterocar-
On The Trail # 2. Robin des Bois
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