An estimated 350,000 elephants are left in Africa. Geneva, 10 May 2019 – An updated assessment by the CITES programme Monitoring of Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) has confirmed that poaching continues to threaten the long-term survival of the African elephant. ", The government of Botswana disputed Chase's findings. Ivory poaching has caused elephants to begin to evolve without tusks. MIKE evaluates relative levels of illegal killing based on the Proportion of Illegally Killed Elephants (PIKE). Nonetheless, it is possible to say that the PIKE value of 0.46 in 2018 is significantly lower than the PIKE values being reported in 2014-2016, which averaged 0.91. In 2018, 53MIKE sites reported data to the MIKE Central Coordination Unit. With 183 Parties, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) remains one of the world's most powerful tools for wildlife conservation through the regulation of trade. It is an obvious target for poachers and the country has put measures in place to deter poaching, including a hunting ban imposed by former President Ian Khama in 2014. African elephant populations have fallen from an estimated 12 million a century ago to some 400,000, according to the most recent estimations contained in the 2016 IUCN/SSC African Elephant Status Report. CITES is an international agreement between governments, aimed to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival.

At the same time, the human population of Africa has grown tenfold, from 125 million to 1,225 million, creating competition for land with elephants.” said CITES Secretary-General Ivonne Higuero.

“We are seeing a downturn in poaching, which is obviously positive news, but it is still above what we think is sustainable so the elephant populations are declining,” said Dr Colin Beale, co-author of the study from the University of York. Botswana is home to an estimated 130,000 elephants and accounts for about a third of the total African population. Elephant poaching and ivory smuggling levels remain alarmingly high in Africa. As in all previous MIKE analyses, governance (as represented by the Corruption Perception Index) continues to emerge as an important national-level predictor of elephant illegal killing. Mike Chase, the director and founder of Elephants Without Borders, told CNN halfway through the survey in September that the level of poaching was "unprecedented" after nearly 90 elephant carcasses were found. These data are submitted to the CITES MIKE programme for analysis. www.youtube.com/c/CITES

CITES was signed in Washington D.C. on 3 March 1973 and entered into force on 1 July 1975. As PIKE levels remain above 0.5 in Africa, the number of African elephants in some countries continues to decline.

The consequences of bad governance are likely to manifest themselves throughout the ivory supply chain, facilitating the movement of illegal ivory from the site all the way to the point of export. CITES regulates international trade in over 35,000 species of plants and animals, including their products and derivatives, to ensure their survival in the wild with benefits for the livelihoods of local people and the global environment. A database of more than 19,100 carcass records has been assembled to date (2003 – 2018) for MIKE sites in Africa.

The number began to fall before the introduction of a ban on ivory trade in the country in 2017, they said.

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B) The total number of carcasses reported by year, irrespective of cause of death (solid line); and total number of carcasses of elephants illegally killed reported by year (dash line).

“The poaching rates seem to respond primarily to ivory prices in south-east Asia and we can’t hope to succeed without tackling demand in that region.”. The annual poaching mortality rate fell from a high of more than 10% in 2011 to less than 4% in 2017, but the researchers warned that current levels were still unsustainable and could spell trouble for the future of the animals on the continent.

not an official document. The researchers called for continued investment in law enforcement to reduce poaching, alongside action to cut ivory demand and tackle corruption and poverty. The situation changed in the following years, with elephant deaths decreasing to 360 per year between 2015 and 2019,” said the Minister of Land and environment Ivete Maibaze in the release. In 2018, the total carcass records received were 1,235, of which 520 were recorded as illegally killed. For use of the media only; not an official document.

Thousands of species are internationally traded and used by people in their daily lives for food, health care, housing, tourist souvenirs, cosmetics or fashion.

Raphaka said the report verified only a portion of dead elephants observed during the aerial survey. “We must continue to reduce poaching and illegal trade in ivory and find solutions to ensure the coexistence of elephants with local people. The MIKE trend analysis also provides insight into current elephant illegal killing levels in each African sub-region: However, it is particularly hard to make reliable inferences based on the year-to-year trend in this sub-region due to the low level of reporting from several sites. Elephants Without Borders said it witnessed a spike in the number of elephant carcasses found in northern Botswana which show "obvious signs" of poaching, according to the final results of the survey, which has been seen by CNN. Various factors may impact the ability of the sites to report as well as the quality of the data; including the level of monitoring and protection of populations at the various sites.

Geneva, 10 May 2019 – An updated assessment by the CITES programme Monitoring of Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) has confirmed that poaching continues to threaten the long-term survival of the African elephant. The annual poaching mortality rate fell from a … Figure 1. By Chrissy Sexton. PRESS RELEASE. Compared to the other subregions, West Africa has the total lowest number of carcasses reported - 797 over 16 years. Chase puts the number of poached elephants in the past year at more than 400, but says they were unable to verify all these cases due to a lack of time and resources.

The MIKE programme will undertake targeted actions to improve the understanding of the situation relating to MIKE implementation in West Africa. THE ELEPHANT CRISIS FUND The ongoing elephant poaching crisis in Africa is driven by a complex, international ivory trade that thrives on poverty, insecurity, organized crime, corruption, and greed.

"I don't -- for one second -- think that President Masisi or the government of Botswana will allow elephant culling in Botswana and to can elephant meat for pet's food," Chase said of last week's proposal by Cabinet ministers. This is calculated as the number of illegally killed elephants found, divided by the total number of elephant carcasses encountered by patrols or other means, aggregated by year for each site. 01-15-2019. In the 1980s, an estimated 100,000 elephants were being killed per year and up to 80% of herds were lost in some regions. He added: "The authors report that only 33 out of a total 128 suspected poaching events were actually confirmed by ground verification.". Such high PIKE levels are of concern because even in well-established and protected elephant populations, the annual losses due to illegal killing and other mortalities would not be compensated by birth rates. Culture and Education.

The team, from the University of York, University of Freiburg and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, analysed data from 53 protected sites across 29 countries between 2002 and 2017. Elephant poaching rates in Africa are declining, according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications. Poaching is at its most intense in central Africa. In a remarkable illustration of evolution by natural selection, African elephants are beginning to lose the tusks that make them so valuable to ivory poachers.

Many African elephant populations are small and fragmented and not well-protected, making them even more vulnerable to poaching. Differences in poaching between sites was found to be linked with levels of corruption and poverty.

MIKE operates in a large sample of designated sites spread across the range of African elephants, Loxodonta africana, and Asian elephants, Elephas maximus, in 30 countries in Africa and 13 countries in Asia.