People carrying placards calling for the end to the ivory trade walk through the streets of Stellenbosch during the Global March for Elephants and Rhinos in Cape Town on October 4, 2014. The Global March for Elephants and Rhinos is taking place in cities across the world calling for an end to poaching and ivory trade. AFP PHOTO/JENNIFER BRUCE
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The Tanzanian march was held in Iringa and was attended by people from all walks of life, including seven year-old Kendall Marillier
Dar es Salaam. Tanzania yesterday joined thousands of people around the world in a march to pressure governments to do more to stop poaching that many fear is driving rhinos and elephants to the brink of extinction.
The Tanzanian march was held in Iringa and was attended by people from all walks of life, including seven year-old Kendall Marillier, who carried a stuffed elephant.
“I don’t want to see them in museums. In the wild is where they belong,” he said, during the march that started at Barclay’s Bank through Uhuru Avenue and ended at Mwembe Togwa area. The event was organised by Wildlife Connection.
Similar marches were also held in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, which alongside Dar es Salaam, are seen as key exit cities for poaching syndicates. Small marches also took place in New York and Washington, with protesters demonstrating in the Big Apple, despite the driving rain.
Outside the White House, demonstrators held up placards with the words, “Say No Ivory” and “Save the Elephant,” while one protester donned an elephant outfit.
The protests, dubbed the Global March for Elephants and Rhinos, took also place on Saturday in 136 cities and towns across six continents, from Soweto to Nairobi, and Paris to New York and Tokyo.
In South Africa, which is struggling to stem a rhino poaching crisis, demonstrators gathered across 17 cities.
“We are protesting against political leaders of the world, who do not have the guts and political will to make changes in their laws,” Dex Kotze, one of the march organisers, told AFP.
“We have to do this for our future generation,” he said. “The youth today is making a statement globally in 136 cities that it’s their heritage that is being killed.”
From 27 million elephants 350 years ago, Africa now has about 400,000 left, and roughly nine per cent of those are being killed each year, Kotze said.
In Tanzania, elephants and rhinos are being brutally slaughtered. South Africa, home to the world’s largest rhino populations, has seen at least 700 killed so far this year. Poaching of the rare African animal is increasing to meet demand from Asian countries where the horn has long been used in traditional medicines for a variety of ailments, including fever and rheumatism. In Nairobi, several hundred people turned out to make their voices heard.
