LIBREVILLE, Gabon (AP) – Growing threats of poaching and habitat loss have made Africa’s elephant populations more endangered, according to a report released Thursday by the International Union for Conservation of Nature .
The African forest elephant is in critical danger and the African savannah elephant is in danger. The two species had previously been grouped as a single species and were classified as vulnerable by IUCN.
The number of African forest elephants has fallen by more than 86% over a 31-year period, while the population of savanna elephants has fallen by more than 60% over a 50-year period, according to IUCN, which assesses the risks of global extinction to the world’s animals.
Africa currently has 415,000 elephants, counting forest and savannah elephants together, according to IUCN.
Savannah elephants prefer more open plains and are found in various habitats in sub-Saharan Africa, with high concentrations of Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Smaller-sized African forest elephants mostly occupy the tropical forests of West and Central Africa, with the largest remaining populations in Gabon and the Republic of the Congo.
In Gabon, the fight against elephant poaching “is more than fighting for nature. He is fighting for the stability of our country, ”Gabon, Minister of Water and Forests of Gabon, told White Associate.
“We have seen countries like the Central African Republic, where poachers turned into bandits, became rebels and destabilized the whole country,” White said, attributing most of the poaching and ivory trafficking to unions. international cross-border.
“Eighty to 90% of our ivory goes to Nigeria and ends up funding (the jihadist rebels) Boko Haram. So it is a cross-border fight against organized crime and even terrorism,” he said.
The battle to protect Gabon’s forest elephants is a war, he said. “We’ve turned biologists into warriors,” White said. “We have transformed the people who signed up to see the elephants and work with nature and national parks into soldiers who have gone to war for the survival of the elephants.”
Criminal networks working with corrupt officials are a major problem in Central and West Africa, according to Rudi van Aarde, of the zoology department at the University of Pretoria. he told The Associated Press.
“Most of the ivory that leaves this continent to Asia comes from Central and West Africa. The population suffers more from the illegal ivory trade instead of environmental problems such as deforestation, ”said van Aarde.
Elephants in sub-Saharan Africa suffered a huge blow with poaching between 2008 and 2012. A worrying trend is that a substantial amount of this poaching occurred in East and Southern Africa, where it is estimated that 100,000 savannah elephants died in northern Mozambique and southern Tanzania. , during that period, he said.
“African elephants play a key role in ecosystems, economies and our collective imagination around the world,” said IUCN Director-General Bruno Oberle, who lamented the small number of African elephants. .
“Today’s new assessment of the IUCN Red List of the Two African Elephant Species underscores the persistent pressure facing iconic animals,” Oberle said. “The results quantify the dramatic extent of the decline of these ecologically important animals.”
“With the persistent demand for ivory and growing human pressures on the wilds of Africa, … concern for African elephants is high and the need to intelligently conserve and manage these animals and their habitats is more sharper than ever, ”said Kathleen Gobush, an advisory leader to the IUCN team compiling the list.
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Magome reported in Johannesburg.