Conservationists adopt 'inventory' in bid to support Kenyan elephants

In a move to increase transparency and accountability in records kept in different regions in Kenya, the Stop Ivory Foundation has developed its first independent inventory of the National Stockpile of Ivory and Rhino Horn.

The initiative will help to determine the exact quantity of ivory stocked as it also prevents forgery and theft of ivory while in stores.

“At this point we are doing an audit of what is coming out of the container. And this is coming from data that we collected during the inventory process. The inventory process was processed while we recorded each and every piece, put it in the data base. And now, as we put it out from the container, we make sure that each container from each location has exactly what we put in there,” Geoffrey Mimano, staff at Stop Ivory Foundation told Reuters.

.KiiruWinnie tells AFP how Stop Ivory came to assist countries to take proper inventory of #ivory for CITES pic.twitter.com/pOXqC2rTg0

— Stop Ivory (@StopIvory) April 22, 2016

“Before, we had like paper based recording and you know the problem with the ‘dog eat my homework’, you know the rain. People in the forest they collect it, they put it on paper and it gets rained on like we saw yesterday. So this allow them, in near real time, to put the informations in the tablet and put in the database at HQ,” Mimano added.

The inventory was co-funded by Stop Ivory and Save the Elephants, two of the leading NGOs working together to support elephant conservation across Africa.

Kenya is planning to burn 100 tonnes of ivory and rhino horns in a strong signal meant to cripple poachers activities.

AFP