Dark Cloud Hangs Over African Elephant Summit

As conservationists gather today for the African Elephant Summit ahead of Wednesday’s Conference on Illegal Wildlife Trade, elephant poaching rates continue to exceed elephant population growth rates, according to new figures released by CITES’ Monitoring of Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) program.

The monitoring group also noted that 2014 poaching rates remained virtually unchanged as compared to the previous year, when the group estimated more than 20,000 elephants were killed for their tusks.

“Elephant poaching in Africa remains unsustainably high,” says African Wildlife Foundation’s senior director of conservation science, Dr. Philip Muruthi, who is attending the summit. “It is imperative that we get a handle on this problem now. I do not want to see us reach a time when there are no more African elephant summits because there are no more elephants.”

Elephant poaching remains highest in Central and West Africa. Data released at the beginning of 2014 noted a 65 percent decline in Africa's forest elephant population between 2002 and 2013. 

During the 2013 African Elephant Summit in Gaborone, Botswana, attendees agreed on a series of Urgent Measures that needed to be taken in order to halt and reverse the trend in illegal killing of elephants and ivory trafficking. Many of the urgent measures required greater commitment from high-level politicians and focused on strengthening existing wildlife laws, regulatory frameworks around investigations, and the capacity of law enforcement agencies at the national and regional level to tackle wildlife crime.

In an effort to elevate its own response to combat wildlife trafficking and better support similar efforts by governmental and non-government partners, African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) established a US$10 million Urgent Response Fund. The Fund is:

• Providing the critical tools, training and support to rangers and community scouts who face off against poachers every day;
• Supporting training of detection dogs to be deployed to those seaports, airports and border crossings in Africa deemed hotspots for wildlife trafficking;
• Supporting analysis of wildlife laws in African countries, provision of sentencing guidelines, and magisterial and law enforcement training; and
• Supporting a widespread public awareness campaign in Asia with partners WildAid and Save the Elephants featuring former NBA star Yao Ming, Chinese film icon Li Bingbing and other well-known celebrities urging consumers not to buy ivory and other wildlife products.

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In addition to the African Elephant Summit taking place on Monday and Tuesday, heads of state and government representatives are expected to attend Wednesday's Kasane Conference on Illegal Wildlife Trade, which follows on the heels of last year's London Conference on Illegal Wildlife Trade. Attendees to Wednesday's meeting will evaluate and measure progress toward the 2014 London Declaration, signed by 41 governments that promised to implement deterrents to end the market for illicit wildlife products in their countries.

"It's not just elephants that are under attack but in fact many of Africa's species, from rhinos to pangolins, are being decimated by the illegal wildlife trade," says Muruthi.