“Elephants are vital to our ecosystem. Yet the population of elephants in steadily dwindling, by almost 8 percent every year. We must step up efforts to manage and protect our biodiversity, including the African elephants,” – Erik Solheim, Head, UN Environment.
Elephants face a multitude of very serious threats, including illegal killing for ivory and other products, conflict with humans, local overabundance and loss and fragmentation of habitat. The magnitude of these threats, for some elephant populations, is so severe that many predict these populations may be lost entirely.
To reverse the trend, UN Environment, in partnership with the Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade and in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, donor States and range States, have worked together to form the African Elephant Fund, a programme to curtail the growing threats to elephant populations.
At the 10th African Elephant Fund Steering Committee (AEFSC) meeting held in Kasane, Botswana, stakeholders of the African Elephant Fund programme discussed and agreed on better ways of enhancing implementation of the programme’s objectives, including improved delivery, communication and visibility of the programme, widened base of resources to support the programme, and enhanced capacities of the steering committee and its members to deliver the objectives of the programme.
Through the African Elephant Action Plan (AEAP), member states, civil society groups, private sectors and the African range states, are effectively guided to conserve elephants in Africa across their range.
For more information, please contact Mamadou.Kane@un.org or Dorris.Chepkoech@un.org
