COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — A group of saffron-robed monks chanted as officials crushed more than 300 elephant tusks in a seaside ceremony on Tuesday, as the new government of President Maithripala Sirisena sought to differentiate itself from its predecessor by sending a powerful message of intolerance for elephant poaching.

Sri Lanka is the first South Asian nation to publicly destroy ivory obtained through elephant poaching and the 16th country in the world to destroy confiscated elephant tusks so that they cannot be traded in the black market.

The previous Sri Lankan government, led by Mahinda Rajapaksa, had planned to distribute the tusks to Buddhist temples around the island, including the Sacred Temple of the Tooth, the country’s most revered. That spurred an outcry from Sri Lankan environmentalists and international wildlife agencies, who argued that the ivory would later be traded.

The crushed ivory weighed 1.5 tons, far less than some caches that have been destroyed. But the action was significant because Sri Lanka is a transit hub for trading in illegal ivory, which is popular in Asia as a symbol of prosperity and for use in Buddhist religious ceremonies. More than 100 tons of poached ivory have been destroyed since 1989, according to the World Wildlife Fund.