Conservation

There are many conservation initiatives worldwide to save this animal from extinction, and to ensure its survival for future generations.

The Asian elephant is listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Being the world’s most comprehensive assessment for the evaluation of conservation status of plant and animal species, they play a leading role in guiding the conservation actions of governments, NGO’s and scientific institutions.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), is an organisation that controls the sale of body parts of endangered species. CITES operates on a system of permits, which corresponds to the three appendices in which plants and animals are listed within. The Asian elephant is listed on CITES Appendix I. This means that they can only be legally traded internationally if permits are issued by both the importing and exporting country. A species on this list can not be traded for commercial reasons. Although this convention protects the Asian elephant from international trade, illegal poaching still remains a huge problem.

The IUCN state the most important conservation priorities for the Asian elephant are:

1. conservation of the elephant’s habitat and maintaining habitat connectivity by securing corridors
2. the management of human-elephant conflicts as part of a integrated land-use policy that recognises elephants as economic assets from which local people need to benefit or at least no suffer
3. better protection to the species through improved legislation and law enforcement, improved and enhanced field patrolling, and regulating/curbing trade in ivory and other elephant products.

There are many organisations and NGO’s working to achieve these conservation priorities, from large-scale, global organisations to small-scale, grassroot non-profit NGO’s.

Millennium Elephant Foundation	http://www.millenniumelephantfoundation.com
Sri Lanka Wildlife Conservation Society	http://www.slwcs.org
Centre for Conservation and Research	http://www.ccrsl.org
Dilmah Conservation	elephants.dilmahconservation.org
Biodiversity and Elephant Conservation Trust	elephantsinsrilanka.org
The Asian Elephant Art and Conservation Project	http://www.elephantart.com
WWF	http://www.worldwildlife.org
Ele Aid	http://www.eleaid.com
Wildlife Conservation Society	http://www.wcs.org
Glo-Wild	http://www.glo-wild.com
The Asian Elephant Foundation	http://www.theasianelephantfoundation.org
The Zoological Society of London	http://www.zsl.org
EU Asia Elephant Conservation	http://www.euasiaelephant.com
Elephant Conservation Center	http://www.elephantconservationcenter.com
Aane Mane Foundation	http://www.aanemane.org
Smithsonian National Zoological Park	nationalzoo.si.edu/default.cfm