Poaching on an "industrial" scale has slashed the elephant population in the countries of central Africa by nearly two-thirds, a group of international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) said on Friday. "A recent study shows that the population of forest elephants has dropped by almost two-thirds or 62 percent in the past 10 years, victims of large-scale ivory poaching," the group of eight NGOs said in a statement.

Kenya plans to bolster current lenient sentences for convicted wildlife poachers or ivory smugglers in a bid to stamp out a spike in elephant killings, the government said today. Government spokesman Muthui Kariuki said in a statement they intend to fight poachers at all levels to save elephants. A major obstacle to this is that Kenyan courts are currently limited in their powers to jail or fine those convicted of wildlife crimes, he said. Poaching has recently risen sharply in east Africa, with whole herds of elephants massacred for their ivory. Rhinos have also be

Kenya plans to bolster current lenient sentences for convicted wildlife poachers or ivory smugglers in a bid to stamp out a spike in elephant killings, the government said Saturday. "We intend to fight poachers at all levels to save our elephants," government spokesman Muthui Kariuki said in a statement. A major obstacle to this is that Kenyan courts are currently limited in their powers to jail or fine those convicted of wildlife crimes, he said. "One of the major setbacks are lenient penalties and sentencing for wildlife crime by the courts," he said.

A group of poachers last week massacred 89 elephants in one night near the town of Ganba in southern Chad, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said in a statement Tuesday. Some 50 Arabic-speaking poachers on horseback carried out the mass killing of the elephants, including 33 pregnant females and 15 calves last Thursday night, the WWF said, citing local officials. According to the organisation the Chadian army was sent to stop the poachers.