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African elephants

About the species

The African elephant is the world's largest land mammal – with males measuring up to 4m high and usually weighing over six tonnes. African elephants once ranged across most of the African continent; today between 470,000 and 690,000 survive in 37 countries across the sub-Saharan region.

There are two subspecies: the savannah elephant lives in grassy plains and woodlands and the smaller, forest elephant with its rounder ears and straighter tusks is found in the equatorial forests of central and western Africa. The status of African elephants now varies greatly across their range, with the survival of some populations remaining precarious, while others are secure and expanding.

Challenges and threats

Once numbering millions across the African continent, elephant populations were halved between 1981 and 1989 through systematic poaching. While the ivory market is the main driver for most poaching, in central Africa elephants are also poached for meat. Between 1950 and 1985, ivory exports grew from 200 to 1,000 tonnes per annum, with most of the ivory taken from poached elephants. Precise levels of this poaching are unclear, as many governments have inadequate resources to monitor or protect their elephants.

In 1989, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) banned the international trade in ivory. Since then, only very limited, well-controlled ivory sales have been permitted from southern African countries with high elephant numbers. However, there are still some thriving but unregulated domestic ivory markets in a number of countries, some of which have few elephants of their own remaining. These domestic ivory markets fuel an illegal international trade, leading to continued poaching. A recent assessment of 22 ivory markets in Africa and Asia estimated that more than 12,000 elephants are needed each year to feed the demand.

Conflict between people and elephants is also a threat to the species’ survival. This conflict, which can be fatal for both sides, has resulted mostly from the loss of elephant habitat to logging, agriculture, infrastructure development and human settlement. Throughout Africa less than 20% of the elephants’ range is protected in parks and reserves. As a result, when elephants try to find food and to follow traditional migration corridors through what was once forest or savannah, in their place they may find roads, fields and villages. This can lead to conflict with local people.

WWF in action

WWF is working to conserve African elephants by protecting their habitat and improving connections between fragmented areas of habitat that they inhabit. We are working with governments and local communities to reduce conflict between people and elephants, decrease poaching, and influence policy and legislation to benefit elephant conservation.

WWF works with TRAFFIC (the wildlife trade monitoring network) to reduce illegal trade in major markets for elephant products and to help governments enforce restrictions on the trade in elephant products. We are also working to improve the livelihoods of people living alongside elephants through economic development activities linked to elephant conservation.

In Namibia we work with the Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation (IRDNC), a local NGO, to establish ways for local communities to manage their natural resources so that conservation and rural development are linked – through enterprises such as wildlife tourism. This project aims to reduce conflict between people and elephants and ensure that people value living elephants as an important sustainable economic resource.

In Kenya, we are working to improve the relationship between elephants and people. Here the aim of the project is to work with farmers and the local communities to look for ways to reduce conflict with elephants. Through various non-lethal methods we are able to stop elephants raiding crops and provide economic benefit local people.

How you can help

• Adopt an elephant

Feature

• Finding answers to elephant-human conflicts

See some great images of the African elephant from our friends at ARKive

Related links

• Illegal wildlife trade
• TRAFFIC
• Forest conversion
• Namibia
• More about African elephants

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