ELEPHANTS & IVORY

© IFAW/D. Willetts/Tsavo National Park, Kenya
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SUMMARY 7
1 | INTRODUCTION 17
2 | WHO ARE THE ELEPHANTS? 23
3 | DISTRIBUTION, NUMBERS, AND CONSERVATION STATUS 29
African elephants 30
Distribution 33
African forest elephants 33
African savanna elephants 33
Numbers of African elephants 33
Conservation status 33
Asian elephants 34
Distribution 34
Numbers 34
Conservation status 34
4 | CURRENT THREATS 37
Expansion of human settlements and development 40
Legal and illegal markets and increasing demand for ivory 40
Additional human threats 42
Implications 43
5 | ISSUES IN ELEPHANT CONSERVATION AND MANAGEMENT 45
The disconnect between science, policy and management 47
There are “too many elephants” 49
The question of culling 52
Economics, conservation, and the real world 52
Elephant conservation, development, and poverty alleviation 53
CITES & the international ivory trade 54
6 | THE NATURE OF ELEPHANTS AND THEIR ECOLOGY :
AN INTERDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE 59
Evolutionary biology – Humans are animals too 61
Ecology 62
Animal psychology 63
Conservation biology 63
Bioeconomics 66
Physics 66
Social Sciences 67
Philosophy 67
Where to from here? 67
7 | A KNOWLEDGE-BASED APPROACH TO ELEPHANT CONSERVATION 69
Putting myths to rest 71
Everything really is interrelated and interconnected 71
A knowledge-based conservation ethic 72
Implications for animal welfare 72
All animals are not created equal 73
If we really want to protect and preserve elephants 73
Dealing with uncertainty 75
Last words 75
8 | ACTIONS FOR INDIVIDUALS AND ORGANIZATIONS 77
9 | CHANGING THE FACE OF ELEPHANT CONSERVATION :
A ROLE FOR INTERGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS 81
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 84
CONTRIBUTORS 84
APPENDICES
1 | Current understanding of elephant taxonomy 85
2 | Numbers of African elephants and range, by country and region 86
3 | Purported numbers of Asian elephants by country 88
ENDNOTES 90