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Togo goes high-tech in crackdown on ivory smuggling

Elephants, the world’s largest land mammal, are one of Africa’s biggest tourist attractions and are found across the continent.

But numbers have fallen from 10 million in 1900 and 1.2 million in 1980 to about 500,000 currently, according to conservation groups.

Trade in ivory was banned in 1989 under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

CITES and other animal protection groups have warned that as many as 20 percent of the continent’s elephants could disappear within a decade if current poaching rates are not tackled.

An estimated 22,000 elephants were killed illegally in Africa in 2012, the groups said.

Demand for tusks, particularly in Asia for decorative purposes and use in traditional medicines, has fuelled a lucrative illicit trade thought to be worth up to $10 billion (7.2 billion euros) a year.

The proceeds are said often to fund militia and rebel groups.

The authorities in Indonesia, China and Hong Kong alerted their counterparts in Togo two years ago about Lome being a trading post in the smuggling after a number of seizures in Asia.

Since then, Togo has stepped up its export controls and all containers leaving the port are scanned closely, according to a customs official.

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Unannounced spot-checks are also carried out in shops in the capital and in the country’s major cities.

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