The elephants of the gourma region are one of only two desert adapted populations and the northernmost in africa making the longest annual migration of all elephants to find food water and refuge…

The U.S. Department of the Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service awarded a $1,092,648 Project Grant under the African Elephant Conservation Fund (CFDA 15.620) to The International Wilderness Leadership Foundation Inc. (doing business as The Wild Foundation), a non-profit conservation organization. The grant will support the Mali Elephant Project, which aims to develop and apply models of inclusive, community-based natural resource management to protect the internationally important population of desert-adapted elephants in the Gourma region of Mali. Key activities include habitat and natural resource protection and restoration, income-generating activities to incentivize sustainable resource management, and engaging youth as catalysts to diffuse the conservation models. The 2-year project will help address increasing human pressure, resource degradation, and human-elephant conflict in the region, which is home to one of only two desert-adapted elephant populations and the northernmost in Africa.

The elephants of the gourma region are one of only two desert adapted populations and the northernmost in africa making the longest annual migration of all elephants to find food water and refuge across an area of over 32000 square kilometers which they share with a mosaic of tribes and ethnicities. The result is a north south movement between water sources in the dry season and accessible high quality food in the 3 to 4 months of wet season all the while trying to avoid human activity. This internationally important isolated population is accorded a high priority in the regional elephant strategy of the international union for the conservation of nature classified as vulnerable listed on appendix II of cites and protected by a regional memorandum of understanding.increasing human pressure is driving resource degradation impoverishing livelihoods and reducing the resilience of the ecosystem to cope with environmental and social change thereby increasing the potential for serious human elephant conflict. The mali elephant project works with local communities to develop and apply models of inclusive elephant centered community based natural resource management that consider habitat and natural resource protection and restoration including degraded land income generating activities to incentivize wise natural resource management and youth as core catalysts for diffusing the models.