Representing a tiny fraction of their former numbers, the living elephants survive in only small pockets of the land they once roamed. In many areas elephant populations have already gone extinct or are highly endangered.

Over centuries legal and illegal hunting ("poaching") for the commercial ivory trade and, in Asia, the capture of elephants for human use, have been largely responsible for the elephant's demise. The number of wild Asian elephants now comprise less than a tenth of all remaining elephants, and continue to decline in shrinking habitat. In Africa, elephants once inhabited the entire continent, from the Mediterranean down to its southern tip, but the ivory trade coupled with human expansion caused a continental decline in their numbers. By circa 1600 North Africa was devoid of elephants. In modern Africa, poaching for ivory has been fuelled by poverty, political instability and civil unrest coupled with the easy availability of arms. In recent history, between 1979 and 1989, Africa's elephants underwent a dramatic and devastating decline, falling from approximately 1.3 million individuals to an estimated 609,000. Human greed and rising prices of ivory were responsible for the appalling slaughter.

Landmark decision 1989 - elephants saved

A landmark 1989 decision banned the international trade in elephant products, placing the African elephant alongside the highly endangered Asian elephant on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). For close to a decade following the ban, the African elephant retained its overall Appendix I status; poaching for ivory in most African elephant range states remained at relatively low levels and many populations began a slow recovery.

Ivory crisis - elephants going extinct?

In 1997, however, the Convention voted to allow three African countries - Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe - to down-list their countries' elephant populations to Appendix II and permitted a one-time sale from existing legal raw ivory stocks. Then, in 2000, CITES voted to allow South Africa to down-list her elephant population to Appendix II. The resulting "split-listing" (Appendix I, banning trade, and Appendix II, allowing limited trade) and partial reopening of trade has been associated with a renewed spike in the seizures of illegal ivory.

Elephants are being killed again, ivory is on the move, and some elephant populations are in free-fall decline once more. Estimates are that as many as 38,000 elephants were poached in 2006 alone (Scientific American, July 2009 (2.59 MB), a number representing 8% of Africa' remaining elephants killed in one year. This figure far exeeds the elephants annual reproductive rate and even exceeds the poaching rate that existed in the late 1980s, before the ban took effect. Some scientists believe that if the poaching and trade are not brought under control most populations of elephants could face extinction by 2020.

Trade in ivory leads to enourmos losses - big battle at CITES in March 2010

The killing of elephants for their ivory is the cause of enormous losses in numbers as well as suffering to individuals. The deaths of individuals causes the fragmentation of families and destroys the very fabric of elephant society. Among Asian elephants where females are tuskless and only a small percentage of males have tusks, even subadult and juvenile tuskers are targeted, causing highly skewed sex ratios, as well as trauma and disruption to elephant families.

The tusks of male African elephants average seven times the weight of the tusks of females, and poaching is focused on males and oldest females. Large males are the primary breeders and the loss of older females impoverishes social and ecological knowledge of remaining family members, reducing individual survival. In populations with the heaviest levels of poaching, elephant groups are composed of traumatized orphans bunched together in leaderless groups.

You can help to stop the killing of elephants by ensuring that your country votes against the ivory trade at each CITES meeting. The 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties will be held in Doha from 13 to 25 March 2010. You will find crucial proposals from Kenya et al, Tanzania and Zambia here, and selected links related the ivory trade and poaching here.

ElephantVoices standpoint is that all elephants should be on Appendix I of CITES and the commercial trade in ivory should be banned.