Africa’s elephants at risk of extinction
African elephants are at increasing risk of extinction in the face of poaching for ivory and the loss of their habitat, the latest conservation assessment warns.
Forest elephants are now listed as critically endangered, at the highest risk of extinction, and savanna elephants are endangered in the new International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.
It marks a worsening outlook for Africa's elephants, which were previously assessed as a single species in the Red List and placed in the lower risk category of "vulnerable" to extinction.
The two species have seen significant declines over the past few decades, with numbers of forest elephants falling by more than 86 per centover31yearsandsavannaelephantsdecliningbyat least 60 per cent over half a century, experts said.
Both forest and savanna elephants have suffered sharp falls in numbers since 2008 in the face of a significant increase of poaching for ivory, which the team behind the assessment said peaked in 2011 but continues to threaten populations.
Ongoing conversion of habitats, mostly to agriculture and other land uses, also poses a significant threat to the world's largest land animal, theassessment warns.
The most recent estimate, the 2016 IUCN African elephant status report, suggests there are around 415,000 elephants across the continent in the two species combined.
But the assessment also point s to successes in conservation of the animals, including anti-poaching measures, legislation, and land use planning which aims to help elephants and people co-exist.