African elephant programme: partners

Organizations and institutions who make this programme work

The WWF African Elephant Programme works through WWF's field programmes in Central, Eastern, Southern and West Africa.

It supports projects that work with range state governments and their appropriate Ministries, wildlife departments and national parks services.

Partnerships are also formed with local communities living alongside elephants. In addition, many projects are implemented with or through non-governmental organisations including those listed below.

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)

Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE)

The overall goal of MIKE is to provide information needed for elephant range States to make appropriate management and enforcement decisions, and to build institutional capacity within the range states for the long-term management of their elephant populations.

More specific objectives within this goal are:

• to measure levels and trends in the illegal hunting of elephants;
• to determine changes in these trends over time; and
• to determine the factors causing such changes and to try and assess to what extent observed trends are a result of any decisions taken by the Conference of the Parties to CITES.

Durrell Institute for Conservation and Ecology (DICE)

University of Kent, UK

DICE is a research and training centre based within the Department of Anthropology at the University of Kent, UK. Its mission is to integrate international conservation and sustainable development by combining natural and social sciences in designing measures to help conserve biological diversity.

DICE runs innovative interdisciplinary training and research programs throughout the world, with a strong component of capacity building in developing countries. Among its varied programs, DICE staff and students have focused on human-elephant conflict and its mitigation throughout Africa for almost a decade.

Elephant Pepper Development Trust

The Elephant Pepper Development Trust was established to promote chilli pepper production by the communal farming community in areas of Southern Africa where conflict exists between wildlife and farmers. EPD advises farmers on natural resources conservation and sustainable utilisation of such resources in relation to the management of conflict with wildlife.

EPD facilitates improvement of the livelihood of the communal farmers by the development of chilli pepper as a cash crop by providing technical and professional advice. Via the Chilli Pepper Company, EPD assists the farmers with marketing the crop through the Elephant Pepper range of products.

IUCN Species Survival Commission

African Elephant Specialist Group (AfESG)

The IUCN/SSC AfESG is a group of technical experts focusing on the conservation and management of African elephants. The group consists of 48 volunteer members drawn from all parts of the continent. All members are actively involved in some aspect of elephant conservation and/or management.

The mission of the IUCN/SSC AfESG is to promote the long-term conservation of Africa’s elephants throughout their range. The purpose of the organisation and its specific objectives are:

• To compile and synthesise information on the conservation and status of the African Elephant across its range
• To provide and improve technical information on the conservation and status of the Africa’s elephants to range state government agencies, non-governmental organisations, inter-governmental organisations, non-range state governments
• To promote and catalyse conservation activities on behalf of Africa’s elephants to be carried out by the above
• To build capacity through the exchange of ideas, information and technical
  expertise among the members of the Group.

TRAFFIC

TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, works to ensure that trade in wild animals and plants is not a threat to the conservation of nature. It has offices covering most parts of the world and works in close co-operation with the Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). TRAFFIC is a joint programme of WWF and IUCN - The World Conservation Union.

African Elephants have always been an important focus of TRAFFIC's work in Africa. A range of technical outputs and assessments have been forthcoming over the years, including reports on the status of ivory stocks within Africa, the impact of the CITES trade ban on ivory trade in selected African countries, the value and conservation impact of a legal trade in elephant hide, and domestic ivory markets.

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)

The Wildlife Conservation Society is dedicated to saving wildlife and wild lands across the globe. From its roots at the Bronx Zoo, founded in 1895, WCS strives to realise this goal through a unique blend of experience through urban zoo management, exploration, field science, and long-term management commitment toward wild landscapes and threatened wildlife species.

The International Programme, with operations in Asia, Latin America, North America, and Africa, is committed to working toward conservation together with governments, donors, other international conservation organisations and local NGO’s, and at grass roots level. In Africa, WCS funds research, training and conservation in 20 countries and supports more African-based field scientists than any other conservation organisation.