Chinese officials 'went on illegal ivory buying sprees'

BEIJING - Chinese diplomatic and military staff went on buying sprees for illegal ivory while on official visits to Tanzania, sending prices soaring, an environmental activist group said Thursday.

Tens of thousands of elephants are estimated to be slaughtered in Africa each year to feed rising Asian demand for ivory products, mostly from China, the continent's biggest trading partner.

When Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Tanzania in 2013, members of his government and business delegation bought so much ivory that local prices doubled to $700 per kilogram, the UK-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) said in a report, citing ivory traders in the Dar es Salaam.

"When the guest come, the whole delegation, that's then time when the business goes up," the EIA quoted a vendor named Suleiman as saying.

They alleged that the buyers took advantage of a lack of security checks for diplomatic visitors to smuggle their purchases back to China on Xi's plane.

Similar sales were made on a previous trip by China's former President Hu Jintao, the report said, and Chinese embassy staff were also described as "major buyers."

A Chinese navy visit to Tanzania last year by vessels returning from anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden "prompted a surge in business for Dar es Salaam-based ivory traders", it said.

A Chinese national named Yu Bo was arrested during the naval visit as he attempted to enter Dar es Salaam port in a lorry containing 81 elephant tusks -- hidden under wooden carvings -- which he planned to deliver to two mid-ranking Chinese naval officers, the EIA said.

Yu was convicted by a local court in March and sentenced to 20 years in jail, it added.

Tanzania is a key ally of China in East Africa, and its President Jakaya Kikwete reportedly signed deals worth $1.7 billion on a visit to Beijing last month.

Tanzania had about 142,000 elephants when Kikwete took office in 2005, the EIA said, adding that by 2015 the population is likely to have plummeted to about 55,000 as a result of poaching.

Almost all ivory sales were banned in 1989 by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), to which both China and Tanzania are signatories.

China often says that it pays "great attention", to the protection of endangered wildlife, and in recent years has carried out several high-profile arrests of smugglers caught in its territory, along with a televised incineration of seized ivory.

The environmental group WWF estimated that around 25,000 African elephants were hunted for ivory in 2011, predicting the toll to rise. There could be as few as 470,000 left, it says.