Chinese national Yang Feng Glan, arrested in 2015, was at the head of a criminal organisation responsible for the illegal international trafficking of ivory.
It has been more than three years since Yang Feng Glan, a 69-year-old Chinese woman, was arrested in Tanzania, accused of having smuggled, between 2000 and 2014, 860 elephant tusks worth 5.6 million dollars. The woman was one of the most prominent ivory traffickers operating in Africa and had been nicknamed the "ivory queen". Huruma Shaidi, a magistrate at the Kisutu court, found her guilty, sentencing Yang Feng Glan and her two accomplices to serve fifteen years in prison, to which two further years will be added if they fail to pay a fine of £2.8 million — that is, twice the market value of the elephant tusks. All three defendants have appealed against the sentence.
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Prison and a fine will not, of course, give us back the more than 400 African elephants massacred for their precious tusks, further contributing to the decline of this species, which in just five years — between 2009 and 2014 — lost more than 60 per cent of its individuals in Tanzania. The sentence does, however, bear witness to the African country's determination to combat poaching and preserve its biodiversity. "It is a highly significant conviction," commented Tom Milliken, head of illegal ivory trade monitoring for Cites. Reuters reported that Amani Ngusaru, director of Wwf, would have preferred a harsher sentence. "It is not sufficient punishment for the atrocities committed, given that she is responsible for the poaching of thousands of elephants in Tanzania."
The Tanzanian court ruled that Yang Feng Glan "intentionally organised, managed and financed a criminal racket by illegally collecting, transporting or exporting and selling ivory". Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang backed the verdict, asserting that China has strict laws on the protection of endangered wildlife. "We do not protect the illegal activities of Chinese citizens and we support the investigations and law enforcement efforts of the Tanzanian authorities." The Asian nation does, however, play a significant role in the decline of elephant populations, being the world's largest consumer of ivory, despite its recent historic ban on the buying and selling of ivory.
The conviction of the "ivory queen" and her accomplices is nonetheless a signal that Tanzania is sending to poachers: stay away from elephants. While convictions for poaching are not all that uncommon, it is rare for those who commission acts of poaching to be convicted rather than those who carry them out. The conviction of individuals at the top of the criminal chain therefore represents a fundamental step in the fight against ivory smuggling.