Ivory haul poses 16-tonne headache for Hong Kong's conservation officers

What do you do with 16 tonnes of elephant tusks?

Conservation officers wrestling with that problem have shelved - for the time being - the idea of incinerating the growing stock of illegal ivory seizures after opposition from their advisers.

The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department keeps the tusks at secret government premises. The department would not give an exact figure but customs figures showed the city has confiscated at least 16 tonnes of ivory since 2008.

Some 1,800 elephants would have been killed to provide such a haul. Its value - based on the 2010 price of US$700 per kilogram - is about HK$87 million. But prices are likely to have risen since then, and the stock is expected to keep growing as the trade is booming and Hong Kong is a favoured transit point.

The department confirmed to the South China Morning Post that it had considered burning the ivory at over 1,000 degrees Celsius at the chemical waste treatment plant in Tsing Yi.

"We have dropped this for now, but it doesn't mean it will not be raised in the future," a spokeswoman said.