Elephants face the inhuman killing by poachers for their white gold or ivory, that nature has gifted them with. This is driven by human greed  and the illegal wildlife trade generates almost US$20-billion a year. Ivory trade is ranked at fourth place in the illegal trades after drugs, counterfeiting and human trafficking.

Poachers trade the ivory in East Asian markets and pass it through the UAE. As this illicit trade kills the elephants, the UAE crushed more than 10 tonnes of raw and crafted ivory seized through the years from its points of entry.

"The value of a live elephant is higher than the worth of all the ivory that we see today," Dr Rashid Ahmad Bin Fahd, Minister of Environment and Water said. "Every year, more than 25,000 elephants are being killed just for ivory. So the UAE will do its utmost to prevent and stop such illegal trade and the harm done to elephants" he added. Destroying the tusks, therefore, sends a strong message to wildlife traffickers that they have no chance of smuggling ivory through UAE, Bin Fahd said.

Poaching the elephants only leads to the extinction of the elephants which play a very important role in biodiversity. The UAE is the first Arab country to crush its ivory stocks, after the US, China, UK, France, among others. The crushed ivory is going to be buried to prevent any form of reuse.

John E. Scanlon, Secretary-General of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES has said, "Today's important event in Dubai serves to raise public awareness about the impacts of illegal elephant ivory trade and the determination of the United Arab Emirates and the global community to put an end to it."