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Agence France-Presse

The illegal slaughter of African elephants to feed Asia’s demand for ivory has decreased by more than half in eight years, but the majestic mammals are still threatened with extinction, researchers warned.
In 2011, poachers killed some 40,000 tuskers – about 10 per cent of the continent’s population, according to figures from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), based in Geneva.
Last year the kill rate was about four per cent, or 15,000 animals, according to new research published in Nature Communications.
“We are seeing a downturn in poaching, but it is still above what we think is sustainable,” co-author Colin Beale, a conservation biologist at the University of York, said.
Beijing backs jail term for Chinese ‘Ivory Queen’ Yang Fenglan in Tanzania
On current trends, the African elephant is in danger of being “virtually wiped out”, surviving only in small, heavily protected pockets, he said.
A century ago up to 12 million of the world’s heaviest land animal roamed the continent.
Today, they number about 500,000, if forest elephants – a subspecies – are included.
Despite a 1990 ban on international trade in ivory, demand in Southeast Asia and especially China has overwhelmed the capacity of local and global authorities to curb the carnage.
“Currently, poaching is worst in west and central Africa,” said Beale.

“I worry most for the future of forest elephants.”
Smaller, more solitary than their cousins on the savannah, forest tuskers in the Congo Basin are estimated to have declined by 65 per cent over the last 15 years alone.
The countries in which poachers have been brought most to heel are Botswana, Namibia and South Africa.
Indeed, Botswana’s elephant population has increased nearly tenfold since 1970, according to co-author Julian Blanc, a researcher in the Wildlife Management Unit of the UN Environment Programme in Nairobi.
Wildlife smugglers still at large after Hong Kong’s biggest ivory seizure in 30 years results in zero prosecutions
“Due to good management, the country was largely unaffected by poaching in the 1980s, as well as the current episode that began in the mid-2000s,” he said.
But the researchers emphasised that law enforcement alone cannot solve the problem.
“We need to reduce the demand in Asia and improve the livelihoods of people who are living with elephants in Africa,” said Beale.
To better understand the complex link between ivory and poaching, the researchers looked at data from a CITES programme that records the sighting of elephant carcasses by park rangers across 53 protected sites in Africa.




Changes in the level of illegal killing tracked closely to fluctuating prices in Asia for ivory.
The prevalence of poaching also matched key indicators of corruption and poverty, which varied sharply across regions.
Ultimately, however, the biggest threat to Loxodonta africana (African bush elephant) may not be human greed but our ever-expanding footprint.
“Habitat destruction and fragmentation caused by humans may be the more serious threat to elephant survival in the long term,” said Blanc.
West Africa – which today has, by far, the smallest elephant population – is also the region in which the most habitat has been lost to agriculture and urbanisation, he pointed out.
WWF exposes loophole in Singapore ivory trade laws that allows illegal trade to prosper
It is unclear whether a 2017 ban on the sale of ivory in China has dampened demand or simply shifted the once-legal trade underground, the researchers said.
“We have no good evidence yet that the ban and associated demand reduction campaigns are working,” said Beale.
“So I have concerns that the current decline may be temporary.”
An investigation by the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC found that even though legally licensed stores it had visited in 2017 no longer sold ivory the following year, the total amount of illegal ivory pieces found had actually increased.
Loxodonta africana is listed as “vulnerable” on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of endangered species.


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Africa

Good news: elephant slaughter down. Bad news: they still face total doom

FILE PHOTO: Mount Kilimanjaro in the distance, as elephants walk in Amboseli National park January 26, 2015. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic/File Photo

FILE - In this Monday, Sept. 4, 2017 file photo, pyres of ivory are set on fire in Nairobi National Park, Kenya. Kenya's president Saturday set fire to 105 tons of elephant ivory and more than 1 ton of rhino horn, believed to be the largest stockpile ever destroyed, in a dramatic statement against the trade in ivory and products from endangered species. According to a scientific report from the United Nations released on Wednesday, March 13, 2019, climate change, a global major extinction of animals and plants, a human population soaring toward 10 billion, degraded land, polluted air, and plastics, pesticides and hormone-changing chemicals in the water are making the planet an increasing unhealthy place for people. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Botswana’s elephant population has increased nearly tenfold since 1970. File photo: AP

Beijing backs jail term for Chinese ‘Ivory Queen’ Yang Fenglan in Tanzania

Chinese businesswoman Yang Fenglan, 69, was jailed for 15 years on Tuesday by a Tanzanian court. Photo: Reuters

Wildlife smugglers still at large after Hong Kong’s biggest ivory seizure in 30 years results in zero prosecutions

Hong Kong customs found 7.2 tonnes of tusks in a shipment of frozen fish in 2017. Photo: Dickson Lee

FILE - In this Sept. 29, 2013 file photo a game ranger stands next to a rotting elephant carcass poisoned by poachers with cyanide in Hwange National Park in Zimbabawe. Poachers in Zimbabwe have used cyanide to kill dozens of elephants for their ivory tusks. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi, File)

Ivory products are seem at Hollywood Road in Sheung Wan. 21DEC16 SCMP/Felix Wong

(FILES) In this file picture taken on July 6, 2017, a customs officer (R) stands guard next to seized elephant ivory tusks during a press conference at the Kwai Chung Customhouse Cargo Examination Compound in Hong Kong, following the city's largest seizure of ivory tusks in the last thirty years. Hong Kong voted to ban ivory sales in a landmark bill on January 31, 2018 to end the infamous trade in the city. / AFP PHOTO / ANTHONY WALLACE

Rhino horn Photo: Handout [FEATURES 2018]

News

World

In 2011, poachers in Africa killed some 40,000 tuskers. Last year, the kill rate was about 15,000
On current trends, the African elephant is in danger of being ‘virtually wiped out’, researchers say


The illegal slaughter of African elephants to feed Asia’s demand for ivory has decreased by more than half in eight years, but the majestic mammals are still threatened with extinction, researchers warned.


Environment

Ivory trade in Hong Kong and China

Good news: elephant slaughter down. Bad news: they still face total doom

In 2011, poachers in Africa killed some 40,000 tuskers. Last year, the kill rate was about 15,000 On current trends, the African elephant is in danger of being ‘virtually wiped out’, researchers say

In 2011, poachers in Africa killed some 40,000 tuskers. Last year, the kill rate was about 15,000

On current trends, the African elephant is in danger of being ‘virtually wiped out’, researchers say