France sets a signal against elephant poaching and crushed tons of ivory seized by French customs - a great event in front of the Eiffel Tower
Three tons of illegal ivory were displayed on February 6, 2014 in front of the Eiffel tower in Paris. France is battling against African elephant poaching, crushing three tons of illegal ivory at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.
The market price of ivory has more than doubled in the past five years and the prohibited sale of the white gold is booming. The contraband with an estimated street value of 7 million Euros was fed into a crusher and ground, with the powder to be carted off and incinerated.
So far, France had, like many other countries kept the seized ivory in customs warehouses, museums and courtrooms. Environmental organizations have been calling for the systematic destruction of seized ivory, also to avoid that parts of it secretly disappear from the camps and passes back to the street market .
French Ecology Minister Philippe Martin and French ecologist Nicolas Hulot attended a press conference sending a powerful message to the poachers and traffickers: there is no future in ivory.
Rockster's Customer Delivered the Crusher
France's largest construction company Eurovia / Vinci was acquired to provide a mobile crushing plant and delivered its flagship machine - the world's first Hybrid Impact Crusher R1100DE - directly in front of the famous sight.
Philippe Martin started the machine and the French customs officials put the ivory on a conveyor belt, which led to the feedhopper of the Rockster crusher. A total of 698 raw or processed tusks weighing 2.3 tons and 15,357 individual pieces such as bracelets, necklaces and statues were crushed by Rockster's R1100DE.
