ELEPHANT UPDATE

Recent News from the WWF African Elephant Programme

© WWF / PJ Stephenson

Number 3 – June 2003

Cover photo: Project staff in Transmara District, Kenya, assess fence poles used to suspend chilli-covered rope that deters elephants from crop-raiding (see page 4). This edition of Elephant Update was compiled and edited by PJ Stephenson. Elephant Update provides recent news on the conservation work funded by the WWF African Elephant Programme. It is aimed at WWF staff and WWF's partners such as range state governments, international and national non-governmental organizations, and donors. It will be published bi-annually. Published in June 2003 by WWF - World Wide Fund for Nature (formerly World Wildlife Fund), CH-1196, Gland, Switzerland Any reproduction in full or in part of this publication must mention the title and credit the above-mentioned publisher as the copyright owner. No photographs from this publication may be reproduced on the internet without prior authorization from WWF. The material and the geographical designations in this report do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of WWF concerning the legal status of any country, territory, or area, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. © text 2003 WWF All rights reserved In 2000 WWF launched a new African Elephant Programme. Building on 40 years of experience in elephant conservation, WWF’s new initiative aims to provide strategic field interventions to help guarantee a future for this threatened species. The long-term goal of the African Elephant Programme is:

to conserve forest and savanna elephant populations in Africa. WWF’s elephant interventions are organised around 4 objectives. • Objective 1 (Protection and Management): To reduce the illegal killing of

elephants through improved protection and management • Objective 2 (Capacity Building): To increase capacity within range states to

conserve and manage elephants • Objective 3 (Conflict Mitigation): To increase public support for elephant

conservation by reducing conflict • Objective 4 (Trade Controls): To reduce the illegal trade in elephant products For further information on the WWF African Elephant Programme please check our website: http://www.panda.org/africa/elephants or contact: Dr Peter J. Stephenson African Elephant Programme WWF International Avenue du Mont Blanc CH 1196 Gland Switzerland Tel: +41 22 364 9111 Email: PJStephenson@wwfint.org

1

NEWS FROM THE FIELD Chilli and engine oil are helping local communities support Mozambique's newest park Thanks to some innovative use of chilli, engine oil, elephant dung and rope, WWF is helping local communities in Mozambique keep elephants off of their land and at the same time gain support for the country's newest national park. In July 2002, a new national park was established in Mozambique. Quirimbas National Park conserves some 600,000 hectares of elephant range in woodland and savanna habitat, as well as more than 150,000 hectares of marine and island habitats. The WWF African Elephant Programme provided support for the establishment of Quirimbas National Park. WWF staff were instrumental in lobbying for the creation of the park and are now active in developing the management plan. With support from the African Elephant Programme, a vehicle and equipment have been supplied to the park and training has been provided for park staff. Eight rangers have already attended the national wildlife training college at Gorongosa, and five more are there at the moment. Five park staff were also taken on an exchange visit to Namibia to witness first-hand wildlife management techniques employed there. WWF also helped prepare new national regulations for forests and wildlife. These have been approved and now form the legal basis for protecting Quirimbas. One reason local communities supported the establishment of the park was that they hoped for park support in dealing with a growing problem of human-elephant conflict. Elephants frequently leave the park to crop-raid in local fields. The project is therefore also working with park staff to help communities set up a range of different systems to stop elephants entering fields. The two most common methods employed are an oiled rope system (smearing chilli and engine oil on a rope barrier), and chilli "bombs" (burning a pungent mix of elephant dung and chilli). Both have been successful, but often need patience. Peter Bechtel, WWF Quirimbas park project co-ordinator, explained how the systems worked in one village. “In Guludu, elephants were drinking at a water hole near the village every night and damaging fields on the way in and out. We helped the community set up an oiled rope system around the water hole. For three nights the smell of the chillies kept the elephants away, but on the fourth night they came in, broke the ropes, and drank. The ropes were repaired and the elephants broke them again later. The village was about to give up on the technique, thinking it didn't work... but the elephants never came back to Guludu. Twice was enough for them." The elephants then tried to move to the neighbouring village of Ningaia but a combination of oiled ropes and chilli bombs kept them away from the cassava fields. Chilli bombs are especially effective as they are quick acting. The "bomb", a mix of elephant dung and chilli dried in to a small ball, is put on to a burning fire. The pungent smoke it creates quickly scares off elephants who clearly, and understandably, do not like the smell. The improvement in crop yield caused by the elephant defences has made a big difference to many farmers. Peter explained that in Ngura a villager decided to use chilli bombs to defend his cabbage patch, which had been destroyed before by elephants.

2

© WWF / Peter Bechtel © WWF / Peter Bechtel

"One night, when the farmer heard the elephants approaching through the forest, he crumbled chilli bombs on top of smouldering logs in four locations around his fields to produce large quantities of smoke. Then he waited. The bull elephant came in first and encountered the smoke. He snorted and shook his head, then turned and ran off. The others followed, and all stayed away from the entire village for five weeks!" This had positive repercussions for the whole village. As a result of the elephants staying away, Ngura villagers harvested mangoes this year for the first time since the civil war ended in 1992. To further improve crop protection, the project is advising villagers to plant their fields next to each other in blocks outside the forest to make them easier to defend. Most villages have set up Village Committees to oversee the crop protection work after the project has trained them. This makes WWF's work sustainable in the long term. In fact, the villagers have also started planting chilli to provide the raw ingredients for the elephant deterrents so they do not have to rely on project support. Villagers with experience at chilli growing are helping others. All round it has become a truly communal effort. Due to the initial successes of human-elephant conflict mitigation in pilot villages, the WWF Quirimbas project has ended up helping three times as many communities as originally planned - 25 instead of eight. The project is already seen as such a success that officials from other districts are now asking for help. It seems a lot more rope, dung, engine oil and chilli will be used around Mozambique in the future to keep elephants at bay. Helena Motta, WWF's Programme Co-ordinator in Mozambique said, "The most important aspect of this work is that the park is being seen to help local people deal with their every day problems. The project's success in reducing crop-raiding and increasing villagers' crop yields has made people enthusiastic and supportive for this new national park. And that in turn should help us ensure a long future for the park and its elephants!" For more information see http://www.panda.org or (in Portugese) http://www.wwf.org.mz or contact: Peter Bechtel, Project Executant, Quirimbas National Park, WWF Mozambique Programme (gecoren@teledata.mz)

Villagers in Ngaia producing chilli "bombs" and oiled ropes to deter elephants from raiding their cassava fields.

3

Monitoring the trade in elephant products - progress in Tanzania and beyond Wildlife officials and law enforcement agencies in Tanzania are now better prepared than ever before to monitor the illegal trade in elephant products. At the end of last year, more than 30 officials attended a training course organised by TRAFFIC (the wildlife trade monitoring network of WWF and IUCN) with support from the WWF African Elephant Programme. TRAFFIC is mandated by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to establish and manage the Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS). ETIS is one of the two monitoring systems established to ensure that CITES decision making does not result in detrimental impacts on African or Asian Elephants. The centrepiece of ETIS is a database on ivory and other elephant product seizures which have taken place around the world since 1989. Although CITES Parties are obligated to submit data on elephant product seizures to ETIS within 90 days of their occurrence, many countries lack the necessary capacity and awareness to meet this obligation. To help rectify this situation, TRAFFIC has developed an ‘ETIS Action Toolkit’ for use in training. With WWF support, TRAFFIC set out to test this toolkit in Tanzania. An ETIS implementation workshop was held in Dar es Salaam in December 2002. It was attended by some 30 participants from the leading institutions in the country’s wildlife sector, customs, police, and ports authorities. The aim of the workshop was to foster awareness of CITES obligations and ETIS amongst those agencies and institutions that have law enforcement capabilities that could lead to elephant product seizures in Tanzania. The workshop was considered a success and resulted in participants proposing to establish a government agency to take the lead with ETIS. Lessons were also learned about TRAFFIC's "toolkit"; a number of improvements were identified and will be addressed prior to the toolkit’s dissemination in other countries.

© TRAFFIC / Simon Milledge

Simon Milledge, head of TRAFFIC's Tanzania Office, said "Many important law enforcement agencies benefited from this workshop and now understand the need to track and report elephant product seizures through the agreed CITES process. This will help ensure Tanzanian data are included within ETIS in a timely manner. This is an important development as Tanzania has one of the largest elephant populations in Africa". In addition to training, the WWF African Elephant Programme's support allowed TRAFFIC to continue to develop ETIS databases in the latter half of 2002. These

A participant at the ETIS workshop in Dar es Salaam discusses ivory identification with TRAFFIC's Tom Milliken (right) and Simon Milledge (centre).

4

databases hold time-based and country-specific data on a range of information, including measures of law enforcement effort and effectiveness, the scale and degree of regulation of domestic ivory markets, and a range of background economic data. With all of the ETIS components fully developed, it was possible to develop the analytical framework to assess more than 7,800 seizure records. TRAFFIC then produced three comprehensive reports which were formally presented to the CITES Conference of the Parties in Santiago, Chile, in November 2002. These reports provided the most detailed and credible analysis of illegal trade in ivory since the 1989 trade ban. The results led the CITES Parties to agree to tackle the issue of unregulated domestic ivory markets and non-compliance with CITES requirements in ten priority countries identified in the TRAFFIC analysis.

© TRAFFIC / Simon Milledge Tom Milliken, Director of TRAFFIC East/Southern Africa said, "We’ve come a long way since the days of the Bad Ivory Database System, the ivory trade tracking tool TRAFFIC originated back in 1992. The CITES mandate in 1997 to elevate our work to a formal international platform was a real challenge, and, for ETIS, the last CITES conference was a ‘do or die’ situation. The decision of CITES parties to accept our critical analysis and subject ten states to a process to improve the regulation of their internal ivory markets means that ETIS has firmly ‘arrived’ as the world’s foremost monitoring system for tracking illegal trade in ivory. It also confirms the efficacy of TRAFFIC’s development of a novel, but credible, methodology for tracking trade dynamics in a situation where formal data sources are largely, if not completely, absent given the illicit nature of the trade". Tom added, "The power of ETIS to clearly focus upon ivory trade problems in an objective manner gives great hope for elephant conservation." For more information see: http://www.traffic.org or contact: Tom Milliken, Director, TRAFFIC East/Southern Africa (milliken@wwf.org.zw) PROJECT UPDATES Helping people live with elephants: mitigating human-elephant conflict Besides the efforts underway at Quirimbas (see page 1), two projects funded by the WWF African Elephant Programme concentrate exclusively on mitigating human-elephant conflict. In the Transmara District of Kenya, a project of the Durrell

A selection of worked and unworked ivory confiscated by the Wildlife Division in Tanzania.

5

Institute of Conservation and Ecology, UK, builds on years of research work to help local people solve their elephant crop-raiding problems. With WWF African Elephant Programme support, the project has helped four Kenya communities reduce the impact of elephants on their livelihoods. The project works with local farmers' associations to find sustainable solutions to their problems. Techniques that are succeeding include the use of communal watchtowers, strong torches, and (the mainstay of modern conflict mitigation) chillies! The project also encourages alternative and sustainable use of elephant habitat for tourism. The local Masai communities have developed a wildlife unit to stop poaching, and offer guided tours of elephant forest to visitors (at least when the elephants are not at home!). With WWF support, the IUCN Species Survival Commission Africa Elephant Specialist Group is also putting in to practice lessons learned from research into human-elephant conflict. It aims to train wildlife department staff and communities in how to measure and mitigate conflict around ten sites across Africa. In 2003 training began in Tanzania around Tarangire National Park and Selous Game Reserve. Preliminary visits have also been made to sites in Central Africa.

© WWF / PJ Stephenson © WWF / PJ Stephenson WWF helps get African elephant range states talking The large differences between the status and numbers of elephants between range states in Africa leads to very different perceptions and opinions about how to conserve and manage elephant populations. These differing views surface every two to three years in CITES meetings and other international fora when countries consider issues related to trade in ivory and other elephant products. In order to build bridges in understanding and to share knowledge between African elephant range states, WWF supported a series of exchange visits between officials from western, central and southern Africa in August 2002. Wildlife staff from nine countries (Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, and Zimbabwe) participated in field visits to elephant sites in Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. Fruitful and stimulating discussions were held on issues arising at each site.

Noah Sitati (centre), head of the Mara human-elephant conflict mitigation project, and 7 of the ten community scouts employed to measure crop-raiding and advise farmers on its prevention.

A Masai wildlife unit with WWF-sponsored community scouts in Transmara District, Kenya. The unit conducts anti-poaching patrols to help wildlife populations recover enough to eventually attract tourists.

6

The visits were considered a success by the participants as they not only provided exposure to the elephant conservation problems faced by each region but also helped build capacity in elephant conservation and management. Equally important the exchange visits provided an opportunity to foster and build a common understanding of differences, similarities, opportunities and constraints each region faces, thus facilitating a greater sense of purpose amongst African states to the conservation of their elephants. Participants expressed a desire to follow-up with a visit to West and central Africa, and they strongly recommended that other countries be given the opportunity to participate in such exchanges. WWF surveys reveal gorillas as well as elephants in the lowland forests of Cameroon During 2002, WWF field teams working with the Ministry of Environment and Forestry conducted large mammal surveys in the south-east lowland forests of Cameroon. The teams searched for elephants as well as other mammals in the 2,425 km2 of Mont Nlonako, Makombe and Ebo forests, areas proposed as wildlife reserves. Support from the WWF African Elephant Programme allowed the training of the teams and the implementation of the surveys. The survey results are encouraging and have demonstrated that this forest block is important for elephants, the highest densities occurring in Mont Nlonako Forest. Chimpanzees were counted and were most common in Ebo. The survey also found an important population of drill (Mandrillus leucophaeus). This is one of the most endangered primates in Cameroon, and within its limited range, the forests of Nlonako, Makombe and Ebo harbour one of the most important populations. The survey teams also recorded gorilla nests. Hairs have since been sent for analysis to try to determine if they are the western lowland gorilla or the much rarer Cross River gorilla. Signs of poaching were apparent in the forests, with Ebo and Makombe subjected to the highest hunting pressure. Formal protection is therefore vital to maintain the elephant and primate populations. Ebo and Mont Nlonako forests have the highest abundance and diversity of species but Makombe should also be protected to provide an important corridor to allow elephants and other wildlife to move between the forests. WWF will therefore follow up on these surveys by continuing to support the Cameroon government to gazette the three wildlife reserves. © WWF Cameroon

Staff from the Cameroon Ministry of Environment and Forestry planning mammal survey transects as part of the WWF-supported training.

7

MIKE starts counting With support from the WWF African Elephant Programme, as well as other donors such as the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the most systematic surveys of elephants ever undertaken in central Africa have just begun. Working at WWF field project sites and in partnership with the Wildlife Conservation Society, the CITES programme for Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) has started to train national park and wildlife staff in elephant monitoring techniques in six countries in the region. The standardized MIKE protocols will allow the col lection of information on elephant poaching that can be analysed on a national and continental level. MIKE is also helping central African governments census their elephant populations to determine total numbers. This will help determine priority sites for elephant conservation and anti-poaching activities.

© WWF-Canon / Frederick J. Weyerhaeuser

Ivory trade studies reveal worrying domestic markets in West Africa In 2002, WWF supported TRAFFIC in conducting studies of the domestic ivory markets in three West African countries: Nigeria, Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal. Draft reports were produced before the CITES Conference of the Parties in Chile in November. They revealed clear and worrying links between unregulated domestic ivory markets and the illegal international trade. The final study report is currently under review and will be published shortly. The next issue of Elephant Update will provide an analysis of the results. Meanwhile, keep an eye on the websites of WWF (www.panda.org) and TRAFFIC (www.traffic.org) for more information on these reports when they are released. Coming Up...

Besides more detailed analysis of West African domestic ivory markets, the next edition of Elephant Update will include: • How many elephants are in the forest? - news on how the MIKE survey teams

manage to work in central Africa • Answers to frequently asked questions about human-elephant conflict and its

mitigation • A discussion on partnerships - how and why WWF supports elephant

conservation by working with other international conservation organizations as well as African governments

• .... and, of course, updates on new and on-going projects funded by the WWF African Elephant Programme.

Forest elephants near a water hole in the Central African Republic - one of the elephant range states being surveyed by MIKE. Others countries where surveys have started or are about to start are Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Republic of Congo.

8

NEWS FROM BEYOND THE AFRICAN ELEPHANT PROGRAMME WWF conserving elephants in protected areas In addition to projects funded directly by the African Elephant Programme, WWF continues to provide support to numerous other initiatives that contribute to the conservation of elephants in Africa. For example, WWF provides financial and technical assistance to many protected area that provide a haven for elephants. Sites supported in recent years include Comoé and Tai National Parks in Côte d’Ivoire, Dzanga-Sangha Forest Reserve in the Central African Republic, Minkebe Forest and Gamba Protected Areas Complex in Gabon, Selous Game Reserve and Tarangire National Park in Tanzania, and Gashaka Gumpti National Park in Nigeria. In south-east Cameroon, WWF has supported the establishment and development of three national parks in elephant range: Lobeke, Boumba Bek and Nki. In 2001, WWF began monitoring elephants in these areas in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment and Forestry and Carolina Zoological Park, USA. As part of the programme, five elephants have been radio-collared and tracked to determine their home ranges, movement patterns and habitat use. This data is of use in park management, especially in Lobeke which (along with the neighbouring Nouabale Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo and Dzanga-Sangha Forest Reserve in the Central African Republic) forms part of the Sangha Tri-National Park. The project, working with neighbouring parks authorities, will identify important elephant migration corridors and provide information required to develop trans-boundary anti-poaching strategies.

© WWF / Leonard Usongo © WWF / Leonard Usongo ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The WWF Africa and Madagascar Programme is very grateful to WWF-Netherlands for its continued financial support to the African Elephant Programme.

WWF project staff in Nki National Park, Cameroon, in April 2003 working with a North Carolina Zoo vet to immobilize forest elephants and to fit them with radio-collars. The animals were revived unharmed. The collars send signals to satellites allowing the elephants' movements to be tracked.

9

WWF AFRICAN ELEPHANT PROGRAMME - PROJECT PORTFOLIO Projects supported by the WWF African Elephant Programme, April 2001-May 2003 Project title Implementing

agencies Start and end dates

Project Goal Total budget (CHF)

9F0725.02 Using modern methods and tools to mitigate human-elephant conflict in selected sites in Africa

IUCN/SSC African Elephant Specialist Group in partner-ship with WWF programme offices and field projects in central, eastern, southern and western Africa

April 2002 to March 2005

To reduce the levels of human-elephant conflict at selected sites by building the capacity of wildlife managers and local communities through supervised use and test-ing of AfESG technical products for HEC mitigation.

213,870

9F0726.01 Conservation of forest elephants in the Mont Nlonako-Makombe-Ebo for-est block, Cameroon

WWF Cameroon Programme Office and the Ministry of Environment and Forestry

June 2001 to June 2002

The conservation of the second largest population of forest elephants of Cameroon through research, capacity building, and the creation of 3 new reserves in Mt Nlonako, Makombe and Ebo.

100,380

9F0726.02 Elephant populations surveys in the forest sites of central Africa

CITES MIKE Programme (Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants)

October 2002 to June 2003

To provide information needed for elephant range states to make appropriate management and enforcement decisions, and to build institutional capacity within the range states for the long-term management of their elephant populations.

113,000

9F0727.01 Mitigating human-elephant conflict in the Mara ecosystem, Kenya

Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, UK, in partnership with WWF Eastern Africa Regional Programme Office and Kenya Wildlife Service

April 2001 to Sept. 2003

To mitigate human-elephant conflict in the Mara ecosystem in Kenya, through a programme of monitoring, research, implementation and capacity-building activities that will provide long-term, sustainable benefits to elephants and local communities.

248,748

9F0727.02 Supporting the development and implementation of ETIS

TRAFFIC in partnership with WWF Tanzania Programme Office

June to Nov. 2002

By CITES CoP12, ETIS is effect-ively established to monitor and assess trends in illegal trade in elephant products.

55,773

9F0728.01 Exchange visits between West Africa and central Africa and southern Africa to share experiences in elephant conservation and management

WWF Southern Africa Programme Office and the Department of National Parks & Wild Life Management, Zimbabwe

January to June 2002

To enhance the knowledge of elephant conservation and management between different African range states through a two-way exchange of ideas, practices, problems faced, approaches used and lessons learned.

90,613

9F0728.02 The conservation of elephants in a new protected area in Mozambique

WWF Mozambique Country Office and WWF Southern Africa Regional Programme Office

June 2002 to June 2003

Staff of Quirimbas Proposed National Park conducting elephant anti-poaching operations and helping local communities mitigate human-elephant conflict by end of June 2003.

118,704

9F0729.01 Assessing domestic ivory markets in West Africa

TRAFFIC April to Sept. 2002

To monitor three key domestic ivory markets in West Africa on a long-term basis and understand their impact on elephant conservation.

49,662

10

© WWF-Canon / Martin Harvey

WWF is the world's largest and most experienced independent conservation organization. It has 4.7 million supporters and a global network active in 96 countries. WWF's mission is to stop the degradation of the planet's natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature by: - conserving the world's biological diversity - ensuring that the use of renewable natural resources is sustainable - promoting the reduction of pollution and wasteful consumption.

WWF International Avenue du Mont Blanc 1196 Gland Switzerland Tel: +41 22 364 9111 Fax: +41 22 364 9268 www.panda.org

© 1986, WWF-World Wide Fund For Nature ® WWF Registered Trademark