KENYA AIRWAYS LAUNCHES ‘WILDLIFE FRIENDLY SKIES’ INITIATIVE
(Posted 28th August 2015)
Kenya Airways, IATA, the Kenya Wildlife Service and conservation NGO Freeland have joined forces to prevent the illegal shipment of blood ivory and other illicit wildlife products from being loaded on one of their flights, either as cargo or concealed in passenger baggage.
The airline’s CEO Mr. Mbuvi Ngunze yesterday told journalists that: ‘Wildlife trafficking is a serious crime that not only robs our people of their heritage but also endangers our tourism revenues. In the last few years, poachers have threatened to finish our elephants and rhinos, but as a national carrier, we have rolled out initiatives to advance the anti-poaching agenda. We have taken proactive steps to ensure we are compliant with both local and global standards for ferrying legal wildlife’.
In Nairobi it is in particular transit traffic from other African countries which in the past has been identified as a major source of ivory smuggling but the deployment of sniffer dogs, the use of more sophisticated scanners and cooperation between KWS, customs and other security officials has led to multiple arrests over the past years.
Kenya Airways will extend special training to selected staff to increase surveillance and monitoring capacity among them, serving as a further barrier against smuggling.
