UNEP Report Released: Elephants in the Dust – The African Elephant Crisis

Today, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), released a joint report produced in conjunction with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the Wildlife Trade Monitoring Network (TRAFFIC), titled Elephants in the Dust – The African Elephant Crisis (2013). The 80-page document available here, discusses how,

[p]opulations of elephants in Africa continue to be under severe threat as the illegal trade in ivory grows - with double the numbers of elephants killed and triple the amounts of ivory seized, over the last decade.

According to a new UN report entitled “Elephants in the Dust – The African Elephant Crisis”, increasing poaching levels, as well as loss of habitat are threatening the survival of African elephant populations in Central Africa as well as previously secure populations in West, Southern and Eastern Africa.