The United Nations Security Council is cracking down on ivory hunters and traffickers who finance armed groups in Africa in a new initiative which has been welcomed by conservationists.

Two resolutions adopted by the council last week -- one relating to the Central African Republic, the other to the Democratic Republic of Congo -- stated that the trade in illegal wildlife was fueling conflicts in the region and bankrolling organized crime.

Under the resolutions, the council can slap sanctions, such as freezing assets or restricting travel, on any individual found to be involved in wildlife trafficking.

The resolutions were primarily designed to target a number of armed rebel groups operating in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The UN also suspects the Lord's Resistance Army run by the ruthless warlord Joseph Kony uses the illegal ivory trade as a source of generating finances.

Other groups believed to benefit from the illegal wildlife trade include Somalia's Al-Shabaab Islamist militant group and Sudan's fearsome Janjaweed militia.

"This is the first time that a United nations Security Council sanctions regime has targeted wildlife poachers and traffickers," said Wendy Elliott, species programme manager at the World Wildlife Fund told AFP. "It should act as a deterrent."

"There is no silver bullet to end this traffic, this is not going to solve the problem instantly but a year ago wildlife trafficking was not seen as a criminal issue, just an environmental one," Elliott added.

The resolution means that traffickers can now be targeted by officialss from different government agencies such as interior and finance ministries, as well as customs.

Since 2009, the trade in poaching has escalated to near industrial levels, with more than 500 kilograms of ivory seized worldwide, threatening elephants and rhinos with extinction despite the existence of CITES (The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora).

An estimated 60 elephants are slain each day in Africa, where the total numbers of the animals has plummeted by half since 1980 to just 500,000.

Lucrative criminal trade

In Februay 2012, traffickers from South Sudan masscred more than 300 elephants in the Bouba N'Djidda National Park in northern Cameroon.

In May last year, taking advantage of the chaos embroiling the Central African Republic, poachers armed with Kalashnikov assault weapons killed at least 26 animals in the fabled "village of elephants" the WWF said, a reserve set up Dzanga Bai World Heritage Site.

If the slaughter continues at the same rate, Africa will lose 20 percent of its elephant population over the next decade, according to projected estimates from the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The illegal trade in ivory and other wildlife is the fourth most lucrative revenue stream for criminal gangs in Africa after drugs, counterfeiting and human trafficking. Ivory can fetch up to $2,000 per kilo on the black market in Asia, it's most common destination.

The UN and conservationists want a twin-pronged approach, targeting both producers of ivory in Africa -- including countries such as Gabon, Kenya, Zambia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and Uganda -- and consumer countries such as China and Thailand. Transit countries on ivory smuggling routes, such as Kenya, Tanzania, Malaysia and Vietnam, would also be targeted.

"It's a simmering issue," a UN diplomat told AFP. Two international conferences to address the subject had already taken place in Botswana and France last December, the diplomat noted.

British Prime Minister David Cameron meanwhile has convened a summit on the trafficking of endangered species from February 12 and 13.

"The idea is to get the highest level of political commitment from the countries involved (in the London conference)," Elliott said.

Conservationists urge Europe to destroy ivory stock
Paris (AFP) Feb 03, 2014 - A conservation group urged European countries Monday to destroy their stockpiles of seized ivory as France prepared to pave the way with the burning of three tonnes of elephant tusks.

Robin des Bois, a Paris-based environmental lobby group, has been pushing France to permanently get rid of its growing ivory hoard, seized from smugglers over the past 25 years, in a bid to halt the slaughter of African elephants.

The group, whose name in English means Robin Hood, estimates the French state has confiscated about 17 tonnes of ivory, most of which remains in storerooms and museums.

The ecology ministry has announced that three tonnes will be crushed in a symbolic gesture near the Eiffel Tower on Thursday, then incinerated.

It has also pledged to "systematically" destroy all ivory confiscated in future.

"We are very satisfied that the French state has changed its doctrine; moving away from the stockpiling of seized ivory," Robin des Bois president Jacky Bonnemains told journalists.

"We hope that this new approach of systematically destroying seized ivory will be extended to rhino horn and other illegal animal products."

The organisation claims that destroying such contraband reduces the temptation to ever return it to the market.

Bonnemains said Thursday's demonstration should be the first of many, and "we call upon the rest of the European Union to do the same."

France will become the latest country to destroy its confiscated ivory after China, which crushed a six-tonne pile in January, and the United States' destruction of a similar stockpile last November.

The Philippines destroyed five tonnes of tusks in June last year, and Kenya set fire to a pile of the same weight in 2011. Last month, Hong Kong said it would incinerate 28 tonnes within the next two years.

A report of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature last year said that some 22,000 African elephants were killed illegally in 2012 and warned of "local extinctions if the present killing rates continue".

The elephants are being massacred for their massive tusks to produce ivory that is in high demand in the rapidly growing economies of Asia, particularly China and Thailand.

The African elephant population is estimated at some 500,000 individuals -- about half the 1980 total.

Robin des Bois said ivory seized between April and November last year amounted to the tusks of some 4,900 elephants -- but underlined that seizures represented only about ten percent of illegal trade.

An international ban on ivory entered into force in 1990, but has since been partially overturned to allow limited legal sales -- a move which conservationists claim has boosted black-market demand.