NAIROBI, Kenya — What do you do when you have more than $100 million worth of ivory sitting around, just collecting dust?

You burn it, of course.

That is what Kenya did on Saturday, when President Uhuru Kenyatta lit a huge pyre of elephant tusks as a way to show the world that Kenya is serious about ending the illegal ivory trade, which is threatening to push wild elephants to extinction.

“No one, and I repeat, no one, has any business in trading in ivory, for this trade means death — the death of our elephants and the death of our natural heritage,” Mr. Kenyatta said.

In the past few years, heavily armed poachers, using military tactics, have wiped out tens of thousands of elephants across Africa. Many of the tusks enter an underground pipeline to Asia, especially China, where ivory is used to make eyeglass frames, combs, statuettes and other trinkets.