topic: Forest Elephants

topic: Forest Elephants

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Iconic tusker’s plight shows challenges in managing Sri Lanka’s wild elephants
- When an iconic Sri Lankan elephant was recently injured in the leg by a trap gun, the incident received wide attention and criticism over the island’s poor handling of wild elephants.
- Agbo is one of Sri Lanka’s largest elephants, and since June, a team of wildlife veterinary surgeons and support staff have been treating the tusker.
- With months among humans, Agbo started showing signs of habituation, losing his fear or mistrust of people and developing a taste for the food provided during treatment.
- From January to late November, Sri Lanka has lost 440 elephants, with gunshot injuries being the main cause for fatalities.

Forest elephants are the ‘glue’ holding Congo rainforests together
- African forest elephants play a vital role in shaping the environment and composition of the Congo Basin rainforest, including the giant carbon-sequestering trees it is noted for.
- Without them, the Congo rainforest would lose carbon stocks and biodiversity, and the composition of the forest itself would change.
- Yet the full ecological value of this charismatic species — and the ecosystem impacts if it is lost — are not fully understood, so increased funding for study and conservation is needed, experts say.
- On this final episode of the Mongabay Explores the Congo Basin podcast season, Andrew Davies, assistant professor of organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard University, and Fiona “Boo” Maisels, a conservation scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society, detail the unique value of forest elephants, what still remains unknown, and why urgent protection is needed.

‘It’s a real mess’: Mining and deforestation threaten unparalleled DRC wildlife haven
- The Okapi Wildlife Reserve in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo protects unique biodiversity, including approximately one-fifth of the global okapi population, the country’s largest forest elephant and chimpanzee populations and 17 primate species, and it safeguards forest access for the Indigenous Mbuti and Efe peoples.
- Deforestation in the reserve is accelerating, according to data from Global Forest Watch.
- Artisanal and semi-industrial mining is a grave threat to the reserve, leading to deforestation and pollution of waterways, particularly in the south of the reserve along the Ituri River and the National Road 4.
- A disagreement over the boundaries of the reserve between park authorities and the mining cadastre complicates law enforcement and requires resolution at the ministerial level.

Cambodia approves, then suspends, marble mine in Keo Seima REDD+ project
- The Cambodian government has suspended a planned marble mine inside a wildlife sanctuary that it had approved just months earlier.
- It’s not clear why this commercial extractive concession inside a protected area was approved in the first place, or why it’s now been suspended (but not canceled).
- The mine would have threatened an important REDD+ project in Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary that benefits both local communities and the area’s biodiversity.
- The REDD+ project is also a bulwark against deforestation; satellite data show it suffers far less forest loss than other parts of the wider wildlife sanctuary and surrounding areas that overlap with concessions.

One elephant a day: Sri Lanka wildlife conflict deepens as death toll rises
- Sri Lanka recorded at least one elephant death a day in the first quarter of 2023, nearly half of them due to human causes, putting the country on track for a record death toll from human-elephant conflict.
- Various approaches adopted since 1959 to tackle the problem have only aggravated the issue or failed to solve it, experts say.
- A national plan formulated in 2020 to mitigate the problem has not been fully implemented due to a lack of funding.
- Wildlife conservationists say that up to 70% of wild elephants could die unless effective measures are urgently adopted.

Elephants promote jumbo trees, boosting the carbon stores in Africa’s forests
- The dietary habits of African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) promote the survival of large, high wood density trees better at storing carbon.
- New research finds that forest-dwelling elephants browse on trees with low wood density, making space for bigger, heftier carbon-rich trees.
- The elephants also act as seed dispersers for these larger trees.
- Cautioning that determining exactly what role local elephant extinctions have played in changing forest composition is tricky, the researchers argue that elephants may boost above-ground carbon storage in Central African forests by 6-9%.

Video: Life in the awe-and-terror-inspiring vicinity of the Sumatran elephant
- Villagers living on the forest’s edge in Indonesia often marvel at the intelligence of elephants, even as they struggle to keep the animals from trampling their farms and homes.
- Sumatra has lost around half its rainforest since the turn of the century, driving the forest-dwelling creatures into increasing contact with humans.
- Watch our short film Indonesians on the front lines of human-elephant conflict in northwestern Sumatra.

Sumatran conservationist Rahmad Saleh Simbolon dies at 47
- The head of the conservation agency in Jambi province, Indonesia, died of a heart attack on Aug. 9.
- After working in protected forest areas in South and North Sumatra provinces, Rahmad oversaw several accomplishments in a province home to numerous threatened species.
- Jambi lost more than a third of its old-growth forest between 2002 and 2021.

Cash-strapped Zimbabwe pushes to be allowed to sell its ivory stockpile
- Zimbabwe is continuing to push for international support for selling off its stockpile of elephant ivory and rhino horn, saying the revenue is needed to fund conservation efforts.
- Funding for the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authority comes largely from tourism-related activity, which has virtually evaporated during the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving the authority with shortages of staff, equipment, and funds for communities living adjacent to wildlife.
- But critics say allowing the sale of the 136 metric tons of elephant ivory and rhino horn that Zimbabwe is holding (mostly from animals that died of natural causes) will only stoke demand and lead to a surge in poaching.
- They point to similar surges following other one-off sales in 1999 and 2008, but some observers say these were unusual circumstances (the latter sale coincided with the global recession), and that a poaching spike won’t necessarily follow this time around.

Ivory from at least 150 poached elephants seized in the DRC raid
- A three-year investigation has led authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo to 2 metric tons of ivory hidden in a stash house in the southern city of Lubumbashi.
- The tusks are valued at $6 million on the international market and estimated to have come from more than 150 elephants.
- The three people arrested in the May 14 raid are allegedly members of a major wildlife trafficking ring in the Southern African region.

To conserve the vibrant diversity of Central Africa’s forests, include Indigenous people (commentary)
- Aspects of traditional BaAka culture and knowledge are intimately tied to their dependence on and respect for the forest. This relationship with the forest has allowed the BaAka to thrive in the Congo Basin for millennia.
- Colonialism and the creation of protected areas in Central Africa have led to the forced removal of BaAka Indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands in the region, in addition to reported human right abuses.
- To address these injustices effectively and equitably, conservation practitioners working in Central Africa should adopt a human rights-based conservation approach which acknowledges and supports the critical ways in which the BaAka lead local conservation efforts and incorporates their forest tenure rights as a measure of overall conservation success.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay or any institutions the author is affiliated with.

Thai tourism elephants are ‘far better off’ in forests: Q&A with photographer Adam Oswell
- Following the collapse of tourism due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of Thailand’s 2,700 captive elephants used for tourism trekked back to rural villages alongside their keepers, where it was hoped they could forage naturally.
- Two years later, international visitors are beginning to return to the country and a new tourism model is emerging in locations where community-managed forests are available to the elephants.
- Under the new model, elephants are granted access to community forests, where they can forage and explore their natural behaviors. Meanwhile, tourists keen to learn about elephants in a natural setting are beginning to visit, enabling people in the villages to generate income.
- Adam Oswell, a photographer who has been documenting wildlife trade and protection in Asia for more than 20 years, spoke with Mongabay recently about his work documenting these projects and the fate of Thailand’s tourism elephants.

In Nigeria, a decade of payoffs boosted global wildlife trafficking hub
- An investigation by Nigeria’s Premium Times and Mongabay has found evidence of systematic failure by Nigerian law enforcement and the judicial system to hold wildlife poachers and traffickers accountable.
- Our analysis of official wildlife crimes data, supported by numerous interviews with prosecutors, environmental campaigners and traders at wildlife markets in Lagos, Cross River, Abuja, Ogun and Bauchi states, found a near-total reliance on minor out-of-court settlements in trafficking cases.
- Despite numerous high-profile, multimillion-dollar trafficking busts at Nigeria’s ports since 2010, no one has faced jail terms as a result.
- The reliance on informal payments to local officials encourages corruption, experts say, while sporadic crackdowns on wildlife markets have not stopped traders operating in the country’s commercial capital.

DNA assessment confirms Gabon as last stronghold of forest elephants
- A new survey has found that there are more than 95,000 critically endangered forest elephants in Gabon, which is considered to be the last remaining stronghold for the species.
- The researchers came to this estimate after collecting elephant dung samples across Gabon and analyzing each sample’s genetic material.
- The survey found that forest elephants were present in about 90% of the country, in both protected and nonprotected areas.
- Forest elephants have been heavily poached in Gabon in the last couple of decades, with 25,000 killed in Gabon’s Minkébé National Park alone between 2004 and 2014.

Jaw bombs, the deadliest threat to Sri Lanka’s elephants, are scaling up
- Hakka patas, an improvised explosive device that detonates when bit, is the number one killer of elephants in Sri Lanka.
- The first reports of these “jaw bombs” emerged in 2008, and although the main target of poachers is wild boars, there have been an increasing number of instances where elephants are targeted.
- The jaw bombs are made by the hunters themselves from widely available supplies and sold to farmers at the village level, making it difficult to crack down on the practice.
- With Sri Lanka’s fireworks industry suffering massive job losses under the COVID-19 pandemic, experts are warning of a possible increase in skilled workers turning to make hakka patas.

In Sumatra, a snare trap costs a baby elephant her trunk, then her life
- A female elephant calf in Indonesia has died days after her rescue and an emergency amputation by conservation authorities in Aceh province.
- Authorities link the elephant’s death to the severe wounds on her trunk believed to have been inflicted by a snare trap set by wildlife poachers.
- Veterinarians amputated half of her trunk, and reported that the elephant appeared to be recovering from the procedure. She died on Nov. 16.
- Snare traps, typically made of steel or nylon wire and usually set for bushmeat like wild boar, are indiscriminate in what they catch, resulting in the capture of non-target species, as well as females and juvenile animals.

Podcast: ‘Stubborn optimism’ for elephants fuels Indigenous conservation effort
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast we take a look at an Indigenous-led elephant sanctuary in Kenya and the latest research informing conservation of forest elephants in Gabon.
- Our first guest is National Geographic photographer and documentary filmmaker Ami Vitale, whose new short film ‘Shaba’ tells the story of an orphaned elephant in Kenya and the Indigenous Samburu people who have rescued dozens of elephants at the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary.
- We also speak with Duke University professor John Poulsen, who tells us about recent research into forest elephants’ role as ecosystem engineers, another study that tracked the movements of nearly 100 elephants in Gabon, and how the findings of these studies can inform conservation measures for the critically endangered species.

China’s efforts to accommodate ‘wandering elephants’ is overshadowed by its conflict with elephants elsewhere (commentary)
- William F. Laurance, distinguished research professor and Australian laureate at James Cook University, provides his take on a herd of 15 Asian elephants that is making headlines as it moves northward from China’s border with Myanmar and Laos.
- “No one knows exactly where the elephants are going, or why,” Laurance writes. “But two things are clear: the elephants were probably struggling to survive in their native habitat, and Chinese efforts to save the elephants clash with the nation’s aggressive strategies of investment and global development.”
- Laurance argues that while China’s efforts to accommodate this particular herd of elephants is notable, its activities beyond its borders are jeopardizing the continued survival of the species. He cites habitat destruction at home, large-scale infrastructure projects abroad, and fueling demand for the ivory trade as examples.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Tanzania’s “Ivory Queen” denied release after appeal
- Judge sends case of trafficking ringleader Yang Fenglan back to trial court.
- Case is among Africa’s biggest wildlife trafficking convictions, involving 860 elephant tusks worth $6 million.
- Yang and two co-accused remain in jail but will have opportunity for new appeal.
- Tanzania’s Director of Public Prosecutions tells Mongabay the case is a message to the world.

Poaching declines in Tanzania following prosecution of ivory trafficking ringleaders
- Taskforce on Anti-Poaching says it penetrated 11 criminal syndicates in five years.
- Conservation groups say wildlife crime networks have moved from East to West Africa.
- Government says elephant populations have grown to 60,000 from 43,000 in 2014.
- Tanzania targets ‘zero-poaching’ after thousands of arrests.

Podcast: It’s an ‘incredibly exciting’ time for the field of bioacoustics
- On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we look at why it’s such an “incredibly exciting” time to be involved in the field of conservation bioacoustics — and we listen to some new and favorite wildlife recordings, too.
- Our guest is Laurel Symes, assistant director of the K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics at Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology. Symes tells us about how a new $24 million endowment will allow the center to expand its support for bioacoustics research and technology around the world and why this field is poised to make a huge impact on conservation.
- After our conversation with her, we listen to some of the most interesting bioacoustics recordings we’ve featured on the Mongabay Newscast, including the sounds of elephants, lemurs, gibbons, right whales, humpback whales, and frogs.

Deforestation intensifies in northern DRC protected areas
- Satellite data from the University of Maryland are showing recent spikes in deforestation activity in the northern portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
- Forest loss appears to be affecting protected areas, including Okapi Wildlife Reserve and Bili-Uéré.
- Major drivers of deforestation in the DRC include logging, charcoal production, agriculture and informal mining, which sources say are aided by government inaction.

Tale of two traffickers is a rare spell of Congolese conservation convictions
- Serial elephant poacher Rombo Ngando Lunda was given a 20-year prison sentence and fined $25,000 in a landmark ruling in March.
- Wildlife trafficker Salomon Mpay sentenced to just two years and a $2,000 fine after being caught with 35 kilos of ivory and 2.5 metric tons of pangolin scales.
- Lawyers for conservation groups whose investigations led to Mpay’s arrest are appealing what they say is a lenient sentence.

For tool-wielding chimps of Ebo Forest, logging plan is a ‘death sentence’
- Ebo Forest is the largest intact forest system in southwestern Cameroon, spanning more than 200,000 hectares (500,000 acres), and providing refuge to a multitude of rare species, including Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees, drills, and a tiny and enigmatic population of western gorillas.
- The Cameroon government recently approved a logging concession for Ebo Forest, which would allow trees in 68,385 hectares (169,000 acres) of the region to be harvested, despite opposition from conservationists and local communities.
- Ebo Forest was previously slated to be transformed into a national park, an effort spearheaded by WWF, but plans were dashed in 2013, reportedly because of lack of funding.
- Conservationists worry that logging, and any concomitant activities, such as illegal forest destruction and poaching, will place considerable pressure on endangered and critically endangered species, and that the biodiversity of the forest would be compromised.

Myanmar ponders what to do with its out-of-work elephants
- As the Myanmar government moves to rein in deforestation, thousands of captive elephants trained to haul logs in Myanmar may lose the care and protection they received when working.
- A government body that owns more than 2,900 captive elephants has turned to ecotourism to raise funds to care for the elephants, but it’s not enough.
- Releasing the elephants into the wild presents its own difficulties, including increased risks of human-wildlife conflict and poaching.
- Private owners, strapped for cash, may be forced to kill their elephant and sell its parts, or sell it alive to another country.

Podcast: Listening to elephants to protect Central Africa’s tropical forests
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast we take a look at a project that aims to preserve the rainforests of the Congo Basin in Central Africa and the biodiversity found in those forests by focusing on elephants and their calls.
- As a research analyst with the Elephant Listening Project, Ana Verahrami has completed two field seasons in the Central African Republic, where she helped collect the behavioral and acoustic data vital to the project. She joins the Mongabay Newscast to explain why forest elephants’ role as keystone species makes their survival crucial to the wellbeing of tropical forests and their other inhabitants, and to play some of the recordings informing the project’s work.
- One of the two existing African elephant species, forest elephants are native to the humid forests of West Africa and the Congo Basin. The forest habitat they rely on has also suffered steep declines in recent years, with one 2018 study concluding that at current rates of deforestation, all of the primary forest in the Congo Basin could be cleared by the end of the century. As Mongabay’s contributing editor for Africa, Terna Gyuse, tells us, the chief threats to the Congo Basin’s rainforests are human activities.

Study tracks first incursion of poachers into ‘pristine’ African forest
- Researchers logged the first evidence of elephant poaching in a remote, pristine section of Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in the northern Republic of Congo.
- The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, also revealed unique behavior changes between gorillas and chimpanzees as a result of selective logging.
- The research highlights the need to incorporate the results of biodiversity surveys into plotting out the locations of areas set aside for conservation.

Sumatran elephant sanctuary under threat from bridge, port projects
- Both the planned bridge and private port in southern Sumatra would be built in an area that includes a key wildlife sanctuary that’s home to 152 critically endangered Sumatran elephants.
- The bridge would link to an island being developed for tourism, while the port would serve a pulpwood mill operated by Asia Pulp & Paper.
- Environmentalists have called for minimal disruption to the habitat if the projects go ahead, including elevated roads and strict zoning to ensure the elephants can co-exist alongside the anticipated influx of people.
- An attempt was made in 1982 to relocate the elephants from the area to make way for a migrant colony, but the elephants moved back and the area was subsequently designated as a sanctuary.

Congo government opens Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park to oil exploration
- In 2018, the government of the Republic of Congo opened up several blocks of land for oil exploration overlapping with important peatlands and a celebrated national park.
- According to a government website, the French oil company Total holds the exploration rights for those blocks.
- Conservationists were alarmed that the government would consider opening up parks and peatlands of international importance for oil exploration, while also trying to garner funds for their protection on the world stage.

In the Congo Basin, a road cuts through once-untouched ape wilderness
- The TRIDOM landscape, encompassing forests in Cameroon, Gabon and the Republic of Congo, is home to more than 40,000 great apes as well as Central Africa’s largest elephant population.
- TRIDOM is in the path of a planned road link between Cameroon and Congo. Associated projects include a hydropower dam.
- While the project’s environmental impact assessment estimated only 750 hectares (1,850 acres) of woodland would be cleared for the road, on-the-ground observation of work in progress indicates the impact will be much greater.
- In addition to the direct impact of forest clearing, conservationists fear the road will increase habitat fragmentation, facilitate hunting and mining, and encourage human migration into the area — something that is already happening.

In Sumatra, a lone elephant leads rescuers on a cat-and-mouse chase
- Conservationists recently tried to relocate a wild elephant from one forest on the island of Sumatra to another.
- The elephant’s original home, the Bukit Tigapuluh forest, has been heavily fragmented by human activity, pushing the animals within into nearby villages.
- The elephant, a female named Karina, is the last remaining member of her herd.

Wild-caught timber elephants in Myanmar die earlier than captive-born ones
- Myanmar’s wild-caught timber elephants have higher rates of mortality and shorter life spans compared to those born in captivity, a new study has found.
- Among wild-caught individuals, elephants that were captured at older ages were worse off than those caught at younger ages, the researchers found.
- Wild-caught elephants also suffered the highest mortality rates during the first year after capture, which decreased slowly over subsequent years.
- The high number of deaths in the year following capture is likely related to capture-related injuries and trauma, followed by harsh taming, the authors say.

Forest elephant DNA diverse, consistent, and distinct, study says
- The loss of more than 60 percent of the world’s forest elephants to poaching has led to calls for its official recognition as a separate species worthy of international conservation support.
- Scientists examined the nuclear DNA of forest elephants across their range to assess the species’ genetic diversity. They found that the elephants’ nuclear DNA, as opposed to mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), is diverse but consistent among populations across Central Africa.
- Adult male elephants that wander great distances in search of females promote gene flow among populations and maintain the species’ genetic diversity. The authors suggest conservation measures that retain three major forest elephant populations representing existing genetic variation.
- The importance of forest elephants for dispersing the seeds of most large trees in the Congo Basin makes their conservation critical to maintaining the health of Central African rainforests.

Two suspected poachers arrested for killing of Sumatran elephant
- Indonesian authorities have arrested two of four suspects alleged to have killed a rare Sumatran elephant and hacked off one of its tusks.
- The arrest took place about a month after the elephant was found dead in the Leuser Ecosystem in Sumatra’s Aceh province. News of the killing garnered widespread attention and calls to solve the case.
- There are only an estimated 2,400 Sumatran elephants left in the wild, scattered across 25 fragmented habitats on the island.

Poachers blamed in second Sumatran elephant death this year
- Forest rangers in northern Sumatra have found one of their patrol elephants dead and missing a tusk inside a protected forest.
- Authorities have cited poisoning by poachers as the cause of death, making it the second such poaching-related elephant killing in Sumatra this year.
- The local conservation agency has called on law enforcers to bring the perpetrators to justice, but past cases suggest this will be slow in coming.

More gorillas and chimpanzees living in Central Africa’s forests than thought
- A study led by WCS researchers pulled together wildlife survey data collected between 2003 and 2013 at 59 sites in five countries across western Central Africa.
- They then developed mathematical models to understand where the highest densities of gorillas and chimpanzees are and why, as well as broader trends in the populations.
- They found that more than 361,000 western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) and almost 129,000 central chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes troglodytes) inhabit these forests — about 30 percent more gorillas and 10 percent more chimpanzees than previously estimated.
- The team’s analyses also demonstrate that western lowland gorilla numbers are slipping by 2.7 percent a year.

U.K. ban relegates legal ivory trade to ‘a thing of the past’
- The United Kingdom says it will ban, with a few exceptions, the sale of all ivory in the country.
- Conservation groups have welcomed the move and pointed out that poaching to fuel the global ivory trade leads to the deaths of 55 elephants a day, or around 20,000 per year.
- The closure of domestic markets in the U.K., along with similar moves in China, Hong Kong and the U.S., will close the loopholes that allow illegal traders to launder their illicitly acquired ivory, proponents of the measure say.

Five-year sentences for elephant poachers in Republic of Congo
- A court in the Republic of Congo has convicted three men of killing elephants for their tusks. They were handed five-year prison sentences and fined $10,000 each.
- The three men were part of a six-member poaching gang that managed to escape an ambush set up by park authorities, but not before leaving behind some 70 kilograms of ivory as well as an AK-47 rifle, according to the WCS.
- The gang is believed to have links to some of northern Congo’s most notorious elephant poachers and ivory traffickers, including two who were jailed in the last two years.

East Africa’s Albertine Rift needs protection now, scientists say
- The Albertine Rift in East Africa is home to more than 500 species of plants and animals found nowhere else on the planet.
- Created by the stretching apart of tectonic plates, the unique ecosystems of the Albertine Rift are also under threat from encroaching human population and climate change.
- A new report details a plan to protect the landscapes that make up the Rift at a cost of around $21 million per year — a bargain rate, scientists argue, given the number of threatened species that could be saved.

Poachers blamed as body of Sumatran elephant, missing tusks, found in protected forest
- Farmers in southern Sumatra found the body of a young male elephant inside a protected forest and missing its tusks.
- No external injuries were found that could point to a cause of death, leading wildlife activists to suspect it was killed by poisoning, a common tactic used by poachers.
- The discovery comes less than a month after a pregnant elephant was found poisoned to death in northern Sumatra — although in that case the tuskless female appeared more likely to have been killed for encroaching on farms than by poachers.

New study: Gorillas fare better in logged forests than chimps
- A study in the northern Republic of Congo found that gorillas and chimpanzees both became scarcer at the onset of logging.
- However, gorillas move backed into logged areas more readily, while chimpanzees were more likely to stay away.
- The researchers believe that gorillas are better able to cope with logging because they’re not as territorial as chimps and they seem to be more flexible in their eating habits.

Citizen scientists around the world are monitoring elephants in Gabon via camera traps — and you can too
- Camera traps have proven to be a powerful tool in conservationists’ arsenal for monitoring forests and wildlife. But the mountains of data they capture need to be sifted through in order to be useful, which often presents a significant challenge for cash-strapped conservationists and researchers.
- To meet this challenge, a team led by Anabelle Cardoso, a PhD candidate at Oxford University in the UK, has turned to another promising new method that is reshaping the way research is done in modern times: citizen science.
- Slow population growth and the ivory poaching crisis have driven down the numbers of African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) in recent years. “We want to conserve these beautiful creatures, but to do that effectively we need to know where these elephants are and how many of them there are, so we can pick the best places to focus our efforts,” Cardoso and her colleagues write.

Ivory is out in the UK, as government moves to shutter legal trade
- The British government began a 12-week consultation period on Oct. 6 to sort out the details for a near-total ban on its domestic ivory trade.
- Conservation groups have long worried that even a legal trade can mask the illicit movement of ivory and stimulate further demand for ivory from poached elephants.
- The conservation groups WCS and Stop Ivory applauded the announcement and pledged to work with the government to put the ban in place.

Liberian park protects Critically Endangered western chimpanzees
- The establishment of Grebo-Krahn National Park in southeastern Liberia was approved by the country’s legislature in August 2017.
- The 961-square-kilometer (371-square-mile) park is home to an estimated 300 western chimpanzees.
- There are about 35,000 Critically Endangered western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) left in the wild, and Liberia is home to 7,000 of them.

Central Africa’s ivory trade shifts underground, according to new report
- A series of undercover investigations by the NGO TRAFFIC over several years in five Central African countries has revealed a shift in the region from local markets for ivory to an ‘underground’ international trade.
- The resulting report, published Sept. 7, finds that organized crime outfits, aided by high-level corruption, are moving ivory out of Central African to markets abroad, especially in China and other parts of Asia.
- A 2013 study found that elephant numbers in Central Africa’s forests dropped by 62 percent between 2002 and 2011.

Watch: $8 million worth elephant ivory crushed in New York City
- The ivory, weighing nearly two tons, is believed to represent more than 100 slaughtered elephants.
- By destroying the illegally obtained ivory, authorities hope to send a message to poachers, traffickers and dealers that the slaughter of elephants will not be tolerated.
- All of the ivory that was crushed on Thursday came from seizures over the past three years, mostly from New York City.

New genetic analyses help scientists rethink the elephant family tree
- Paleogenomics, which studies molecular data from fossil bones, has shown that African forest elephants are more closely related to a now-extinct ancestor than they are to African savanna elephants.
- Recent advances in laboratory methods are enabling scientists to recover very old or degraded DNA sequences from warmer places, where DNA degrades at a much faster rate, and to reassess conclusions made using solely bone morphology.
- Scientists say results suggest a rework of the elephant family tree and greater consideration of how to conserve African forest elephants, populations of which have been decimated over the last 20 years.

Big forests, big ag: Are rainforests the right place for industrial agriculture? (commentary)
- Gabon remains a relative stronghold for endangered wildlife like chimpanzees and forest elephants.
- Singapore-based Olam International, one of the world’s largest agribusinesses, has agreed not to plant palm oil in protected wetlands, and also set aside conservation areas and corridors for wildlife in its concessions in Gabon.
- But there is only so much that can be done to minimize the impact of clearing 26,000 hectares in the middle of one of the world’s most forested countries.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Cross River superhighway changes course in Nigeria
- The 260-kilometer (162-mile) highway is slated to have six lanes and would have run through the center of Cross River National Park as originally designed.
- The region is a biodiversity hotspot and home to forest elephants, drills, Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees and Cross River gorillas.
- The proposal shifts the route to the west, out of the center of the national park, which garnered praise from the Wildlife Conservation Society.
- The route still appears to cut through forested areas and protected lands.

More than 25,000 elephants were killed in a Gabon national park in one decade
- A decline of somewhere between 78 and 81 percent in the park’s forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) population over the span of just one decade was largely driven by poachers who crossed the border into Gabon from its neighbor to the north, Cameroon, according to a new study led by researchers with Duke University and published in the journal Current Biology this week.
- The fact that Cameroon’s national road is so close to the park makes it relatively easy for poachers to slip into the park, make their illegal kills, and then transport elephant tusks back to Cameroon’s largest city, Douala, which has become a major hub of the international ivory trade.
- Nearly half of Central Africa’s estimated 100,000 forest elephants are thought to live in Gabon, making the loss of 25,000 elephants from a key sanctuary a considerable setback for the preservation of the species, according to John Poulsen, assistant professor of tropical ecology at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment and the lead author of the study.

Thap Lan: Thailand’s unsung forest gem under threat, but still abrim with life
- Thailand’s Thap Lan National Park is part of the Dong Phayayen – Khao Yai Forest Complex (DPKY-FC), designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its importance to global biodiversity.
- The DPKY-FC supports 112 species of mammals, 392 species of birds, and 200 species of reptiles and amphibians.
- Thap Lan receives few visitors and faces major threats, including poaching, illegal logging and the expansion of a highway leading from Bangkok to the country’s northeast.
- The park, along with the rest of the DPKY-FC, could be downgraded by UNESCO to inscription on the “List of World Heritage in Danger.”

Most illegal ivory comes from recently killed elephants: new study
- The multi-billion-dollar illegal ivory trade is almost entirely being fueled by African elephants killed within the last three years, a new study has found.
- This indicates that it is new ivory that is moving rapidly into the illegal market, and not old ivory from stockpiles that was previously thought to be leaking into the market, researchers say.
- The results of the study can help law enforcement focus their efforts on the regions worst hit by poaching and can also provide information on the killing rate of elephants, researchers add.

Elephant poaching costs African nations $25 million a year in lost tourism revenue
- The elephant poaching crisis does not harm elephants alone, it is bad for the economy too, according to a new study.
- The loss of elephants to wildlife trafficking is costing African countries about $25 million a year in lost tourism revenue, the study found.
- The tourism revenue lost due to declining elephants exceeds the anti-poaching costs necessary to stop the decline of elephants in east, west and southern Africa, the researchers found.

Brazzaville-issued mining permits dip into Congo’s flagship park
- In 2016 the Ministry of Mines and Energy issued at least seven permits that allow companies to prospect or begin mining for gold inside the Republic of Congo’s largest national park.
- Odzala-Kokoua became a national park in 2001 by presidential decree, which does not allow mining.
- Congo’s pivot toward mineral extraction as an economic development strategy may mean that the government could change the park’s borders to allow mining if it is ‘in the public interest.’

Can Liberia succeed in balancing palm oil with conservation?
- Liberia is a biodiversity hotspot, with 35 percent of the country designated as exceptionally high priority for conservation.
- The West African nation has seen an expansion of its palm oil sector in recent years, as the government has granted massive concessions to foreign companies to plant palm oil plantations.
- Only 1.3 percent of the Ministry of Agriculture’s budget has been designated for checking up on the industry’s environmental impact, which officials say isn’t enough for proper monitoring.

Elephant poaching rate unchanged – and still devastating

Savannah elephant in Kruger National Park in South Africa. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. New figures show essentially no change in the number of elephants killed in Africa by poachers last year, despite a high-profile meeting on the crisis which was attended by 46 countries and a number of commitments. Data from CITES’ Monitoring the […]
The Zanaga iron ore mine – a test of best laid plans for preserving wildlife

Logging companies threaten to undermine the mining industry’s efforts to leave biodiversity better off One of the largest iron ore deposits in Africa is located in a strip 47 kilometers long and three kilometers wide in the Republic of the Congo (RoC), bordering Gabon. A core section of the Guineo-Congolian Forest rises above this vast […]
WCS-led raids lead to six arrests near Mozambique’s largest reserve

WARNING: Graphic photos below. 35,000 elephants killed in Africa in 2012 for black market ivory trade A joint force of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and government authorities are in the midst of carrying out a series of raids against poachers in Mozambique aimed at halting the illegal killing of elephants in Niassa National Reserve, […]
Ndoki Forest, charmed or cursed? Conservationists admit sustainable logging wilting in naïve chimp habitat

“You come across that crest, and … you’re going from forest that has already been exploited to this kind of no-man’s land… It just felt like you were going into this vast unknown wilderness” – Mike Fay from Eating Apes by Dale Peterson and Karl Ammann. Mike Fay, famed explorer and conservationist, said this of […]
Ivory trade’s shocking toll: 65% of world’s forest elephants killed in 12 years (warning: graphic image)

Forest elephants have suffered unprecedented butchery for their ivory tusks over the past decade, according to new numbers released by conservationists today in London. Sixty-five percent of the world’s forest elephants have been slaughtered by poachers over the last dozen years, with poachers killing an astounding nine percent of the population annually. Lesser-known than their […]
Elephant killer gets five years in prison in the Republic of Congo

The Congolese Supreme Court has ordered Ghislain Ngondjo (known as Pepito) to five years in prison for slaughtering dozens of elephants for their ivory tusks. The five year sentence is the maximum in the Republic of Congo for poaching. Ngondjo was considered the “kingpin” of an elephant poaching group; in addition to killing pachyderms, Ngondjo […]
African militias trading elephant ivory for weapons

The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is using lucrative elephant poaching for ivory to fund its activities, according to a report published on Tuesday. Eyewitness accounts from park rangers, Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) escapees and recent senior defectors report that the fugitive warlord Joseph Kony, who is wanted by the international criminal court for war crimes […]
Emergency: large number of elephants being poached in the Central African Republic (warning: graphic image)

WWF and the Wildlife Conversation Society (WCS) are issuing an immediate call for action as they report that poachers are killing sizable numbers of forest elephants near the Dzanga-Sangha protected areas in the Central African Republic (CAR). The two large conservation groups have evacuated their staff from the area after a government coup, but local […]
Prayers for dying elephants: Buddhists hold prayer ceremony for elephants decimated by poachers

A monk at Wat That Thong temple in Bangkok During a Buddhist merit-making ceremony to pray for the tens of thousands of elephants poached annually. Photo by: © WWF Thailand. Buddhist leaders prayed for slaughtered African elephants in Bangkok, Thailand last week, reports WWF. During a special merit-making ceremony, often reserved for the recently deceased, […]
Seeing the forest through the elephants: slaughtered elephants taking rainforest trees with them

Forest elephants in the Mbeli River, Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, Congo. Photo by: Thomas Breuer. Elephants are vanishing. The booming illegal ivory trade is decimating the world’s largest land animal, but no place has been harder hit than the Congo basin and its forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis). The numbers are staggering: a single park in Gabon, […]
Over 11,000 elephants killed by poachers in a single park [warning: graphic photo]

A butchered forest elephant head in Minkebe National Park. Photo by: Mike Fay. Surveys in Gabon’s Minkebe National Park have revealed rare and hard data on the scale of the illegal ivory trade over the last eight years: 11,100 forest elephants have been slaughtered for their tusks in this remote protected area since 2004. In […]
A new tool for taking on elephant poaching: DNA forensics

Forest elephant in Gabon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. One of the difficulties plaguing law enforcement and authorities when it comes to tackling elephant poaching is determining where the ivory originates. Now, research published in the journal Evolutionary Applications, has found a new way of tracking ivory back to wild elephants populations: forensic genetic studies. […]
Gabon to burn ivory stockpiles

Forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) in Gabon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. The government of Gabon has announced it will burn its stockpiles of ivory later this year in a bid to undercut illegal elephant poaching, which is decimating populations in central Africa. “The burning of a country’s entire ivory stockpile will be an historic conservation […]
Forest elephant populations cut in half in protected area

A forest elephant in Gabon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler . Warfare and poaching have decimated forest elephant populations across their range with even elephants in remote protected areas cut down finds a new study in PLoS ONE. Surveying forest elephant populations in the Okapi Faunal Reserve in the Democratic Republic of Congo, researchers have […]
Unsung heroes: the life of a wildlife ranger in the Congo

Bunda Bokitsi. Photo by: Zoological Society of Milwaukee (ZSM). The effort to save wildlife from destruction worldwide has many heroes. Some receive accolades for their work, but others live in obscurity, doing good—sometimes even dangerous—work everyday with little recognition. These are not scientists or big-name conservationists, but wildlife rangers, NGO staff members, and low level […]

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