Stop the Illegal Wildlife Trade: African elephants at growing extinction risk from poaching and habitat loss

Due to poaching for ivory and loss of habitat, the outlook for both species of African elephant – the larger savanna elephants and smaller forest elephants – has worsened, according to a worrying new conservation assessment.

The larger savanna elephant is now listed as endangered, while smaller forest elephants are now listed as critically endangered – which puts them at the highest risk of extinction.

The assessment comes as the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has updated its Red List of Threatened Species, and indicates a clamorous future for elephants in Africa, which were previously on the red list as a single species and considered “vulnerable” to extinction.

The IUCN said the two species have now been assessed separately following the emergence of genetic evidence over the last decade which has proved the animals are distinct from one another.

The warning comes amid major declines in African elephant numbers across the continent.

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The number of African forest elephants fell by more than 86 per cent over a period of 31 years, while the population of African savanna elephants decreased by at least 60 per cent over the last 50 years, the IUCN said.

Both species have suffered sharp declines, particularly since 2008 due to a significant increase in poaching, which peaked in 2011 but continues to pose a major threat to populations.

The assessment said the ongoing destruction of elephants’ habitats, primarily to make way for agricultural land and other developments is another significant threat.

It is thought a total of just 415,000 elephants remain across Africa. As recently as 1980, there were over a million elephants in Africa. Even after a surge in demand for ivory in the Victorian period, in the early 20th century over 10 million elephants remained in Africa.

“Africa’s elephants play key roles in ecosystems, economies and in our collective imagination all over the world. Today’s new IUCN Red List assessments of both African elephant species underline the persistent pressures faced by these iconic animals,” said Dr Bruno Oberle, the director general of the IUCN.

He added: “We must urgently put an end to poaching and ensure that sufficient suitable habitat for both forest and savanna elephants is conserved. Several African countries have led the way in recent years, proving that we can reverse elephant declines, and we must work together to ensure their example can be followed.”

But despite the alarming overall trend, the assessments also revealed the impact of successful conservation efforts: anti-poaching measures on the ground, together with legislation and land use planning which seeks to foster human-wildlife coexistence, have been key to successful elephant conservation, the IUCN said.

This has meant some populations of forest elephants have stabilised in well-managed conservation areas in Gabon and the Republic of the Congo. Meanwhile, savanna elephant numbers have also been stable or growing for decades especially in the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, which harbours the largest subpopulation of this species on the continent.

“While the results of the assessment place the continental population of savanna elephants in the endangered category, it is important to keep in mind that at a site level, some subpopulations are thriving,” said the IUCN’s Dr Dave Balfour, who worked on the assessment of the elephants.

“For this reason, considerable caution and local knowledge are required when translating these results into policy.”

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Dr Kathleen Gobush, who lead the IUCN’s assessment of the elephants warned “persistent” demand for ivory, along with greater potential for human-elephant conflict as human populations spread meant there remain grave concerns about elephants’ future.

She said: “For these assessments, a team of six assessors used data from as far back as the 1960s and a fully data-driven modelling approach to consolidate the decades-long efforts of many survey teams for the first time.

“The results quantify the dramatic extent of the decline of these ecologically important animals.

“With persistent demand for ivory and escalating human pressures on Africa’s wild lands, concern for Africa’s elephants is high, and the need to creatively conserve and wisely manage these animals and their habitats is more acute than ever.”

The IUCN Red List now includes 134,425 species of which 37,480 are threatened with extinction.