Researchers Document Huge Drop in African Elephants in a Half Century

 Elephants walk at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo
Elephants walk at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo
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Researchers Document Huge Drop in African Elephants in a Half Century

 Elephants walk at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo
Elephants walk at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo

African elephants are Earth's largest land animals, remarkable mammals that are very intelligent and highly social. They also are in peril. Fresh evidence of this comes in a study that documents alarming population declines at numerous sites across the continent over about a half century.

Researchers unveiled on Monday what they called the most comprehensive assessment of the status of the two African elephant species - the savanna elephant and forest elephant - using data on population surveys conducted at 475 sites in 37 countries from 1964 through 2016.

The savanna elephant populations fell by about 70% on average at the surveyed sites and the forest elephant populations dropped by about 90% on average at the surveyed sites, with poaching and habitat loss the main drivers. All told, there was a 77% population decrease on average at the various surveyed sites, spanning both species, Reuters reported.

Elephants vanished at some sites while their populations increased in other places thanks to conservation efforts.

"A lot of the lost populations won't come back, and many low-density populations face continued pressures. We likely will lose more populations going forward," said George Wittemyer, a Colorado State University professor of wildlife conservation and chair of the scientific board of the conservation group Save the Elephants, who helped lead the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Poaching typically involves people killing elephants for their tusks, which are sold illegally on an international black market driven mostly by ivory demand in China and other parts of Asia. Agricultural expansion is the top factor in habitat loss.

The forest elephant population is estimated to be about a third that of savanna elephants. Poaching has affected forest elephants disproportionately and has ravaged populations of both species in northern and eastern Africa.

"We have lost a number of elephant populations across many countries, but the northern Sahel region of Africa - for example in Mali, Chad and Nigeria - has been particularly hard hit. High pressure and limited protection have culminated in populations being extirpated," Wittemyer said.

But in southern Africa, elephant populations rose at 42% of the surveyed sites.

"We have seen real success in a number of places across Africa, but particularly in southern Africa, with strong growth in populations in Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia. For populations showing positive trends, we have had active stewardship and management by the governments or outside groups that have taken on a management role," Wittemyer said.

The study did not track a continent-wide population tally because the various surveys employed different methodologies over different time frames to estimate local elephant population density, making a unified head count impossible. Instead, it assessed population trends at each of the surveyed sites.

A population estimate by conservationists conducted separately from this study put the two species combined at between 415,000 and 540,000 elephants as of 2016, the last year of the study period. It remains the most recent comprehensive continent-wide estimate.

"The loss of large mammals is a significant ecological issue for Africa and the planet," said conservation ecologist and study co-author Dave Balfour, a research associate in the Centre for African Conservation Ecology at Nelson Mandela University in South Africa.

The world's third extant elephant species, the slightly smaller Asian elephant, faces its own population crisis, with similar factors at play as in Africa.

Of African elephants, Wittemyer said, "While the trends are not good, it is important to recognize the successes we have had and continue to have. Learning how and where we can be successful in conserving elephants is as important as recognizing the severity of the decline they have experienced."

Wittemyer added of these elephants: "Not only one of the most sentient and intelligent species we share the planet with, but also an incredibly important part of ecosystems in Africa that structures the balance between forest and grasslands, serves as a critical disperser of seeds, and is a species on which a multitude of other species depend on for survival."



Greece to Create New Marine Reserves to Protect Underwater Wildlife

Greece banned bottom trawling in the waters of the Fournoi Korseon island chain in the Aegean to protect recently discovered coral reefs. Handout / Under the Pole/AFP
Greece banned bottom trawling in the waters of the Fournoi Korseon island chain in the Aegean to protect recently discovered coral reefs. Handout / Under the Pole/AFP
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Greece to Create New Marine Reserves to Protect Underwater Wildlife

Greece banned bottom trawling in the waters of the Fournoi Korseon island chain in the Aegean to protect recently discovered coral reefs. Handout / Under the Pole/AFP
Greece banned bottom trawling in the waters of the Fournoi Korseon island chain in the Aegean to protect recently discovered coral reefs. Handout / Under the Pole/AFP

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Monday said that his government was creating two new protected marine areas, fulfilling a promise he made at a United Nations conference on the oceans in June.

The new protected areas -- in the Ionian Sea and in the Southern Cyclades in the Aegean Sea -- would be "among the largest marine protected areas in the entire Mediterranean", he said in a video message in English.

The prime minister said that the "hugely damaging practice of bottom trawling" by commercial fishing boats would be banned within the new marine reserves and in all Greece's marine protected areas by 2030, making it the first country in Europe to take such a significant step in preservation, reported AFP.

Fishing is generally allowed in protected marine areas worldwide, even by trawlers which scrape the seabed with a huge funnel-shaped net, to devastating effect.

Mitsotakis said that he had "made a promise to honor (Greece's) unique marine heritage" at last month's UN Oceans Conference in southern France, "and to protect it for generations to come".

"Today I am delivering on that promise with the establishment of two new marine national parks... because when we protect our ocean, we protect our own future."

Greece is located in the eastern Mediterranean and has around 13,600 kilometers (8,450 miles) of coastline and thousands of islands.

Greece, Brazil and Spain all used the UN conference in Nice, to announce new protected marine reserves and measures to ban bottom trawling, in order to better protect marine wildlife.

Mitsotakis said that the size of the new Greek marine reserves "will enable us to achieve the goal of protecting 30 percent of our territorial waters by 2030".

He said that the government would work with "local communities, local fishermen, scientists (and) global partners (to) make these parks examples of what is possible".

The oceans are 'life itself'

In May, Athens banned bottom trawling in the waters of the Fournoi Korseon island chain in the Aegean to protect recently discovered coral reefs that are exceptionally rich in marine wildlife.

Neighboring Türkiye, whose western coast is close to the Aegean islands, responded to Monday's announcement by criticizing such "unilateral action".

"International maritime law encourages cooperation between the coastal states of these seas, including on environmental issues," the foreign ministry in Ankara said.

It said that Türkiye was willing to cooperate with Greece and would soon announce its own plans to protect maritime areas.

Greece and Türkiye, both members of NATO, have historical disputes over maritime boundaries in the Aegean Sea.

They signed an agreement in 2023 aimed at easing tensions.

Mitsotakis said that "Ocean", a new documentary by British natural history broadcaster Sir David Attenborough, had inspired Greece to accelerate efforts to protect life below the waves.

"Ocean", which features spectacular footage of undersea habitats and marine life, emphasizes the importance of healthy seas for tackling climate change and the current sweeping loss of wild species across the planet.

Mitsotakis said "Ocean" showed that the sea was "not just beautiful scenery".

"It is life itself. Delicate. Powerful. And under threat."