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.
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