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Protected
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Conserving Africa's Elephants

Current Conservation Issues

As with its Asian relative, the long-term survival of the African elephant is cause for great concern. Although continent-wide there is a general paucity of accurate data, it is clear that elephant numbers have fallen drastically during the second half of this century. In 1979, there was an estimated 1.3million elephants in Africa; by 1995 this had shrunk to somewhere between 300,000 and 600,000 (Figure1).

Despite even the most successful conservation efforts, it is doubtful that the number of elephants will ever revert to its previous level. One reason for this is the growth of Africa's human population during this century. In 1950, it stood at around 220 million; it is currently estimated to have reached some 740 million, and is expected to double again by the year 2025. More importantly than numbers, widespread changes in the extent and patterns of land use (brought about by demographic, economic, and te chnological change), mean that there is probably insufficient undisturbed habitat left to adequately provide for the number of elephants known to have existed in the earlier part of this century.

Part of the decline in habitat is due to the availability of new dryland-adapted crop strains so that former elephant rangelands are now being cultivated. In forested areas, the impact of major logging programmes is opening up and destroying elephant habi tat. As for the effects of climate change on Africa's environment, it is anyone's guess what the impact will be on a species such as the elephant with such a broad range of habitat choice.

Current estimates place the total range of the African elephant at about 5.9 million square kilometres, of which only 1.1 million square kilometres, or about 20 per cent of the total, is designated protected area of one form or another (Figure1). In reali ty, the proportion of the elephant's range under protection is even smaller due to the fact that budgets for park management and anti-poaching measures are on the whole woefully inadequate.

Given the general reduction in recent years of large-scale, commercial poaching of elephants, because of the banning of the international trade in ivory, the focus of conservation efforts has shifted to dealing with the consequences of diminishing elephan t range. In doing so, two closely related issues have emerged. The first concerns the impact of increasing numbers and densities of elephants on the habitat inside protected areas, as a result of the recovery or increased confinement of elephant populatio ns. The second relates to the expansion of human settlement into, and the economic development of, elephant range outside of protected areas. This has inevitably led to increased competition between elephants and humans for limited resources such as space and water. Flashpoints of human-elephant conflict are increasingly evident, particularly along the boundaries of protected areas.

Photo

Next: Protected Areas and Elephant Range in Africa


Copyright 1997, The World Wide Fund For Nature