World Elephant Day 2024: Elephant poaching is down, but it is by no means over

An article by Dr. Adam Cruise, Wildlife Investigative Journalist associated with The Bateleurs.

The wave of elephant poaching over the past two decades appears to have substantially subsided while prices of ivory have collapsed, but there remain serious threats to some elephant populations. We honour World Elephant Day 2024 to highlight this plight.

According to the 2024 report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the international ivory market is shrinking, prices are collapsing while ivory seizures and elephant poaching figures are decreasing. This appears to be the result of a multitude of supply and demand interventions.

The closure of a number of key domestic markets, such as those in China, the USA, Europe and Thailand, have constrained demand while on the supply side, a series of convictions of high-level traffickers who operated in Africa and Asia “may have facilitated a constrained flow of illicit ivory, as captured in the decline in aggregated seizure volumes.” Importantly, these factors have not resulted in an increase in ivory prices. According to the report, the collapse in prices means that demand for ivory has “truly declined”.

Prices of ivory appear to be dropping to new lows in both Africa and most of Asia while the number of detected poached elephants continues to decline overall, with 2021 being one of the lowest totals on record.

However, the report cautions that the impact this trend is having on African elephant numbers remains unclear. Since October 2023, a total of 105 elephants have been poached in Botswana. There are clear indications that gangs from Zambia and Namibia are operating in these areas with impunity.

Furthermore, analyses of large ivory seizures from 2016-2019 suggest that the largest elephant poaching hotspot in Africa may have shifted south from East Africa to northern Botswana and neighbouring countries. Zambia’s elephant’s population remains in a steep decline. Against the overall trend, the country lost over a third of its population between 2016 and 2022, having previously recorded an 85% carcass ratio (eight dead for every one live elephant) in Sioma Ngwezi in south-western Zambia, which borders Namibia and Angola.

Elsewhere, West and Central Africa are still recording high levels of elephant poaching. Forest elephants continue to show a sharp decline in their two-strongholds in Gabon and Republic of Congo. The species Red Data listing changed from Vulnerable to Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in 2019. The savannah elephant is now listed as Endangered.

The good news is that the decline of ivory prices in the face of declining supply suggests that it is a genuine decline in demand that, in turn, has led to an overall decline in elephant poaching in Africa. However, the continued threat to some elephant populations is a worry. The report concludes that “persistent detection of large shipments of ivory highlights the continued existence of both a market and those willing to invest in it. While progress has been made on many fronts, the threat to local elephant populations has not gone away.”