Asian elephants elephas maximus face many threats to their survival in the wild

This $635,122 Project Grant award from the U.S. Department of the Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service under the Asian Elephant Conservation Fund (CFDA 15.621) aims to address the critical threats of illegal trade and poaching facing the endangered Asian elephant population. The primary objectives are to: 1) Assess the nature, scope, and scale of illegal trade threats to Asian elephants, 2) Conduct a policy and implementation gap analysis to promote compliance with CITES and other relevant policy instruments, and 3) Engage key stakeholders to catalyze the development of more effective policies and conservation interventions by Asian elephant range countries. The grant recipient, Environmental Investigation Agency UK, is a non-profit organization with extensive experience providing research, policy analysis, and strategic support to U.S. government agencies on international environmental and wildlife trafficking issues. The project will focus on the Greater Mekong subregion, including China, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand, and is expected to be completed by May 31, 2026.

For almost four decades the species has been listed on the iucn red list of threatened species as endangered indicating that IT faces a very high risk of extinction in the wild. Threats to their survival include habitat loss and fragmentation human elephant conflict and the poaching and illegal trade of live elephants and their parts and products including ivory and skins. This project aims to focus on and address the illegal trade threats and collate information and data that can be used to inform and support decisions and interventions related to the future survival of asian elephants. Recognising the role of certain countries in the poaching and illegal trade of live elephants and their parts and derivatives the project will focus on countries in the greater mekong subregion primarily china LAO PDR myanmar and thailand. The goal is to provide the conservation and policy making community with current data and evidence relating to illegal trade threats and policy gaps which can be used to inform measures to ensure lasting effective protection across the species range.an update to the knowledge base is necessary and overdue not only to shed light on trafficking trends and routes but also to help gauge the relevance efficiency and effectiveness of current policy and conservation measures. This includes law enforcement efforts informed by the latest available data which may now be outdated. Further delays in assessing the status of trade threats represent yet one more untenable risk to this ecologically and culturally important species. The project will update the baseline knowledge and share information with key stakeholders to promote evidence based policy and conservation interventions in line with the kathmandu declaration of 2022.the project has three main objectives. The first objective is to assess the nature scope and scale of illegal trade threats facing asian elephants. The second objective is to conduct a policy and implementation GAP analysis to promote compliance with cites and other policy instruments by determining the extent to which state parties enforcement agencies and other stakeholders are addressing the trade through the implementation of policy provisions and effective measures. The third and final objective is to conduct key stakeholder engagement and sensitisation to catalyse the development of policies and implementation measures by asian elephant range countries and other stakeholders in the policy and conservation communities.