The unprecedented surge in high level poaching in the 1970 and 1980’s prompted the Kenyan government to burn 12 tons or 12,000 kilograms of accumulated ivory in July 1989 as a bold statement to the world that poaching was a menace, threatening to wipe out an entire species and that something needed to be done. The international trade in ivory was banned later that same year. Kenya’s ivory burning on 30th April 2016, is part of this same cycle of public destructions, which the country pioneered in 1989. On business today KWS officials speak about the measures in place to stop the trade and what next after the ivory burn.