CRI听力:Yao Ming Raises Awareness about Ivory Poaching

At a press briefing in Kenya's capital Nairobi, Yao said his trip is designed to help convey the message that the demand for ivory is causing elephants to be slaughtered across Africa:

"What we are doing is to try and increase public awareness about what ivory is made of."

Yao also explained how the Chinese government has made a lot of effort to combat ivory trade and enhance wildlife protection.

He says, more joint efforts are needed to eradicate ivory trade.

"Our government did a lot of things trying to stop it. And, for the other side, I think we have increased public awareness. Also I think this is for both sides' cooperation. In the future, we are looking forward to both of our people, both Kenya and China will be working together to build this relationship and we can give those elephants a peaceful land to live."

Yao drew on examples in the international community such as the U.S and Columbia who collaborated in fighting against drug trafficking.
Julius Kipng'etich is the Director of the Kenya Wildlife Service:

"Africa has only 400,000 elephants, that's it. So therefore once we kill 400,000 elephants and they are gone, so where are you going to get new ivory? So we don't want to go to that stage; we just want to educate the people that if you actually wear ivory, you are just leading it to extinction."

The world's elephant population plummeted in the 1980s as poaching became endemic.

Yao Ming will next visit South Africa.

His trip on the African continent is to be made into a documentary on wild life protection.

For CRI, I am Zhang Shuangfeng.