During the past several years, I've watched country after country destroy their stockpiles of confiscated elephant ivory, preventing that ivory from somehow slipping back into the black market and symbolically demonstrating commitment to stopping the illegal trade.

But to my mind, something that’s always been missing is an apology: No country has ever formally said sorry for its complicity in the trade. Tomorrow Sri Lanka will hold a religious ceremony to do just that.

“We have to apologize,” said the Venerable Omalpe Sobitha Thero, the Buddhist priest who will lead the service. “Those elephants were victimized by the cruelty of certain people. But all of human society is responsible. We destroyed those innocent lives to take those tusks. We have to ask for pardon from them.”

Sri Lanka’s destruction of its ivory—the first by a country in South Asia—brings to 16 the total so far. (For the other countries, see the chart below.) The ivory will be crushed at an iconic oceanside park in the heart of Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital, then burned in a city incinerator.

The ivory—the country’s entire stockpile—came from a single shipment of 359 tusks, weighing 1.5 tons, seized by customs authorities at the Port of Colombo in May 2012. The shipment was in transit from Kenya to Dubai. DNA testing later showed that the tusks came from Tanzania.

Sri Lanka’s president, Maithripala Sirisena, who took office in January 2015, will attend the event. His government’s action represents an about-face from the previous regime, which in 2013 had tried to donate the ivory to the Sri Dalada Maligawa Buddhist Temple.

That plan was announced shortly after a National Geographic story, “Ivory Worship,” revealed that the global religious market fuels elephant poaching, and it prompted a public outcry. Critics feared that the ivory would re-enter the black market.

They also argued that by giving the ivory to a third party, Sri Lanka would flout the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the body that regulates the global wildlife trade.

“We can show the world that we are also in the CITES family,” Samantha Gunesekera, former deputy director of Sri Lanka Customs, says. “We convey that message throughout the world, [and to] our people.”

At the ivory crush, there will be two minutes of silence, after which Sirisena, along with Minister of Sustainable Development and Wildlife Gamini Jayawickremea Perera, Minister of Finance Ravi Karunanayake, and CITES Secretary-General John Scanlon, will address the gathering.

Then the Venerable Omalpe Sobitha Thero will lead a religious ceremony that will include a transfer of merits, a Buddhist ritual often done for departed relatives to honor them and help them reach a better place in their next life.