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00:00 Nigeria destroyed two and a half metric tons of seized tusks on Tuesday as it pushes to
00:07 protect its dwindling elephant population from rampant wildlife traffickers.
00:12 The tusks, valued at nearly 10 billion naira or over 11 million US dollars, were crushed
00:18 in the capital Abuja.
00:19 "They are most beautiful on the elephant and we should leave them on the elephant."
00:25 Mark Ofua, West Africa representative for the Wild Africa Fund, said the seized ivory
00:30 had been stockpiled over years.
00:32 "And then today we have brought everything out to say we want to make a public show of
00:38 destroying them to mark a tenure or an era where Nigeria says no to illegal wildlife
00:45 trade, no to destruction of our biodiversity, no to destruction of our wildlife."
00:52 Over the past three decades, Nigeria's elephant population has plummeted from an estimated
00:57 1,500 to less than 400.
01:01 Conservationists say that's due to poaching for ivory, habitat loss and human-elephant
01:06 conflict.
01:08 Nigeria is considered a hub for gangs sending illegal African wildlife parts to Asia, according
01:13 to law enforcement and experts.
01:16 But counter-smuggling efforts have been stepped up in recent years.
01:20 "And I can assure you that any perpetrator in illegal wildlife trade in Tusk, both those
01:26 that go out to do the killings, those that do the buying and those that do the trading,
01:31 when caught will be fully dealt with according to the law."
01:35 Tuesday's event follows a similar one in October when officials destroyed four metric tonnes
01:40 of seized pangolin scales valued at $1.4 million.
01:46 Nigeria's Environment Minister Izzyak Selako said the powder from the elephant tusks would
01:50 be used to build a symbolic national park monument, a reminder of the importance of
01:55 elephants in the ecosystem.
01:57 [BLANK_AUDIO]