African elephants are the largest living land animals. Once
numbering millions across the African continent, their
populations had been decimated by the mid-1980s by
systematic poaching. The status of the species now varies
greatly across Africa. Some populations remain
endangered due to poaching for meat and ivory, habitat
loss, and conflict with humans, while others are secure and
expanding.
There are two sub-species of African
elephant:
1. The savannah elephant (L. a. africana), also known as
the bush elephant, is the largest elephant in the world, with
a maximum shoulder height of 4m and weighing up to
7,500kg. It is recognizable by its large outward-curving
tusks, and it lives throughout the grassy plains and
woodlands of the continent, particularly in eastern and
southern areas. Some populations in eastern and southern
Africa are expanding.
2. The forest elephant (L. a. cyclotis) is smaller and darker
than the savannah elephant, has straighter,
downward-pointing tusks, and lives in central and western
Africa’s equatorial forests. Forest elephants are more
generally threatened than the savannah sub-species due
to poaching and loss of forest habitat.
Elephant numbers vary greatly over the 37 range states;
some populations remain endangered, while others are
now secure. For example, most countries in West Africa
count their elephants in tens or hundreds, with animals
scattered in small blocks of isolated forest; probably only
three countries in this region have more than 1,000
animals. In contrast, elephant populations in southern
Africa are large and expanding, with some 300,000
elephants now roaming across the sub-region.
What are the problems facing African
elephants?
Poaching and the ivory trade
The international demand for elephant tusk ivory was so
great in the 20th century that the African elephant came
close to extinction in parts of its range. A valuable
commodity, ivory is used in carvings, jewellery, name
seals, and other artefacts. As a result, between 1950 and
1985, ivory exports from Africa grew from 200 to 1,000
tonnes per annum, with most of the ivory taken from
poached elephants.
In 1989, the Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)
banned the international trade in ivory. Since then, only
very limited, well-controlled ivory sales have been
permitted from southern African countries with high
elephant numbers. However, there are still some thriving
but unregulated domestic ivory markets in a number of
countries, some of which have few elephants of their
own remaining. These domestic ivory markets fuel an
illegal international trade, leading to continued poaching.
A recent assessment of 22 ivory markets in Africa and
Asia estimated that more than 12,000 elephants are
needed each year to feed the demand of these markets.
In central Africa, elephants are also poached for their
meat. Precise levels of this poaching are unclear, and
many governments have inadequate resources to
monitor or protect their elephants.