Wildlife experts and officials from about 30 governments are set to gather this week in Botswana to confront the threat that wild elephants could be heading for extinction, due in part to Chinese demand for ivory.
From 420,000 to 650,000 African elephants survive, but more than 100,000 have been killed in the past four years, according to a study published in the US Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The African elephant is rated as “vulnerable” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature index, while the Asian elephant is rated as “endangered” — a cause of serious concern.
“It is not sustainable as, if trends continue, the elephant population could be at risk of extinction — especially in central Africa where we see the greatest amount of poaching,” WWF senior adviser Heather Sohl said.
The African Elephant Summit is to be held in Kasane tomorrow to follow up on a 2013 meeting when 30 nations adopted a set of urgent conservation measures, including a call to unite against poaching and for improved criminal prosecution.
On Wednesday, the Conference on Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT) is to meet to focus on the trafficking of all threatened species — an illegal trade worth US$19 billion a year, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
In one graphic example of declining numbers, the TRAFFIC wildlife trade monitoring group reported that from 2007 to 2013, the elephant population in the Tanzanian reserve of Selous dropped from 70,000 to 13,000.
“Over the past few years, I have documented with regret the slow retreat of elephants from habitats they were rapidly repopulating,” Elephants Without Borders director and founder Mike Chase said. “The threat of local extinction feels very real.”
Experts agree that elephant culling is organized by international criminal networks that supply the illegal ivory market, mainly in Asia.
Ivory is reportedly bought at US$100 per kilogram from poachers, and sold for US$2,100 per kilogram in China, the main market.
“China holds the key to the future of elephants,” Kenya-based Save the Elephants founder Iain Douglas-Hamilton said. “Without China’s leadership in ending demand for ivory, Africa’s elephants could disappear from the wild within a generation.”
Beijing last month made the largely symbolic gesture of banning ivory imports for a year.
Elephants have survived better in South Africa and Botswana than further north due to poachers concentrating on killing rhinos, whose horns are prized in Asia for their supposed medicinal qualities.
Officials said protecting the rhinoceros will also be high on the agenda at the IWT conference in Kasane.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS