The African Elephant Conservation Fund (AECF), managed by our International Affairs program, is committed to investing in African elephant population strongholds and the efforts of our partners to improve conservation governance systems. A recent study, published in Conservation Letters by Roberto Correa and colleagues, reveals that both funding and effective governance (meaning the rules, policies, and decision-making processes that guide how conservation projects are managed) are key to stabilizing savanna and forest elephant populations across Africa. While the study identifies $1.5 billion is required annually to ensure effective protection of African elephants, results demonstrate that even limited investment can help slow their decline, particularly in areas characterized by strong governance systems.
The study, funded in part by a grant through the AECF, is the first to examine the return on investment for elephant conservation at 80 protected areas across Africa. In addition to underscoring the need to sufficiently increase resources for protected areas, it emphasizes the role of governance. This highlights the need for systematic support to improve governance systems in order to secure existing financial investments and their conservation impact. Through the AECF, we have been working with both governmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) throughout the African elephant range to provide the long-term support needed to foster national capacity and implementation of good governance systems at the local and national scale.
Conservation activities in the Luangwa-Zambezi Valley, which is home to Zambia’s largest and most stable population of elephants at about 20,000 individuals, provide a good example of our investment. A poaching crisis between 1960 and the late 1980s caused a population crash of over 90 percent of Zambia’s elephant population. Since then, significant and sustained investment in elephant protection efforts, community engagement, and tourism development that were implemented through strong collaborative partnerships among the protected area NGO operators and the Zambian Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW) have led to an increase in the population. Since 2003, we have invested over $6 million in financial and technical assistance to support these efforts, including providing core support to protected area operations as well as developing leadership capacity and support to national institutions.
The study is published as an open access paper: Correa, R. J., Lindsey, P. A., Critchlow, R., Beale, C. M., Geldmann, J., & Plumptre, A.J. (2024). Performance of protected areas in conserving African elephants. Conservation Letters, e13041. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.13041
