Mozambique has sent a clear and unequivocal message, one it hopes will spread like the smoke that rose into the sky from the largest consignment of rhino horns and elephant tusks ever seized. Last Monday, the African country burned 1,284 kilograms of tusks and horns, taken from elephants and rhinos confiscated from poachers.

Never before had such a large quantity of ivory and horns been destroyed; the initiative was above all symbolic, bearing witness to Mozambique's commitment to fighting poaching.

Poaching is a particularly widespread problem in the country. Over the past five years, poachers have killed almost half of Mozambique's elephants: according to a recent census, the population has fallen by 48 per cent, dropping from more than 20,000 to around 10,300 individuals.

For rhinos, however, it is too late. The species was declared extinct in Mozambique in 2013, yet the country remains a transit point for traffickers transporting horns from South Africa to Asia.

In May, Mozambican law enforcement agencies, together with the local Ministry of Agriculture, seized more than a tonne of elephant tusks and rhino horns, with an economic value of over 20 million dollars (while the value to the animals that "wore" them was incalculable), in what has been described as the most significant operation in the history of the fight against ivory trafficking in Mozambique.

"Today we are sending a message," declared Celso Correia, minister for land, environment and rural development. "Mozambique will not tolerate the poachers, traffickers and organised crime that feeds them to kill our wildlife and threaten our communities."