Yesterday was the second World Elephant Day. World Elephant Day was started in 2012 to focus attention on declining elephant numbers and ways that we can collectively do something about it. Fact is, humans are largely responsible! This is and elephantine task, and we are happy to, in our own way, draw attention to the effort that the World Elephant day organization is undertaking.

Since the first World Elephant Day one year ago, has anything changed?

Ivory poaching and trafficking crimes, and human-elephant conflict tragedies have continued to escalate taking the lives of both elephants and humans in Africa and Asia. In countries such as Sumatra and Sri Lanka, much of the endangered Asian elephants’ remaining precious habitat is being bulldozed down to make room for palm oil plantations or superhighways, all in the name of development. Although in countries from continental Africa and Asia to the USA there have been some poachers arrested, and tons of smuggled illegal ivory seized, this has made little impact on the multi-billion dollar black market industry that continues to drive the trade. It’s clear that enforcement policies and penalties are still too weak to make a difference to the kingpins behind the scenes. Meanwhile anti-poaching squads in African countries such as Kenya, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo bravely risk their lives to stop the poachers, but in many cases are no match for these heavily armed gunmen. Much about these issues has been reported by scores of journalists, advocates and conservation NGOs, from the big to the small. There are countless organizations that have been tirelessly working at all levels to bring attention to these issues and to what we can do about it.