As world leaders declare war on poachers and light an extraordinary bonfire...

From a distance, it looks as if someone is building a chi-chi new safari development on the edge of Nairobi. But as you get closer, you realise that these elegant constructions are not made of traditional wood, grass and mud. They are huge piles of ivory — 105 tons of the stuff, to be precise. And the really sobering statistic is that more than 20,000 elephants were killed to produce this lot. Yet tomorrow afternoon the entire haul, worth up to £150 million on the black market, will be put to the torch, with heads of state and some of the world’s leading conservationists looking on. I hope they are standing upwind of all the smoke. Because this will be the biggest ivory bonfire in history. Read more: