Ivory Coast sounds alarm over plunging elephant population
Phys.Org
April 28, 2021
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https://phys.org/news/2021-04-ivory-coast-alarm-plunging-elephant.html
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Elephants face extinction in Ivory Coast where they are a national emblem,
with numbers decreasing by half in the past 30 years, the country's water
and foresty ministry said Wednesday.
Blaming the decline on deforestation and poaching, a top official at the
ministry, Kouame Me, said the elephant population in the West African
country has dwindled to fewer than 500.
"The population of pachyderms was 100,000 individuals in the 1960s," Kouame
told AFP, adding that more than 200 animal species face extinction in the
former French colony.
Cultivation of cocoa—the country's top export—has brought about
deforestation that has seen a nearly 90 percent reduction in the country's
forest cover over the past 50 years.
Today Ivory Coast is the world's top cocoa exporter, enjoying some 40
percent of the market.
Deforestation has endangered the last refuges of forest elephants,
environmental experts say.
Elephants are also threatened by poachers and rapid urbanisation that is
encroaching on the beasts' natural habitats.
The government launched a conservation drive in 2016 in the Mont Peko game
park in the west of the country, home to the world's last dwarf elephants.
The illicit trade in ivory is the third most lucrative after drugs and arms
trafficking, fuelled by demand in Asia and the Middle East, where elephant
tusks are used in traditional medicine and in ornaments.
Ivory can fetch up to 7,000 euros ($8,400) a kilo.
https://phys.org/news/2021-04-ivory-coast-alarm-plunging-elephant.html