A six-year field survey has shown a catastrophic and massive decline of Côte d’Ivoire forest elephants over the past 20 years, with a 90 per cent drop in populations across the West African nation’s protected areas.
Elephants were found in only four of the 25 protected areas which extended across more than 3,680 square kilometres. Areas of suitable forest habitat were also found to have declined by around 80 per cent over the past two decades. More than half of the protected areas included in the survey had been “completely converted to farms and human settlement”.
The research was conducted by a team of seven scientists from the Laboratoire des Milieux Naturels et Conservation de la Biodiversité at the Université Félix Houphouët Boigny d’Abidjan-Cocody in Abidjan, the economic capital of Côte d’Ivoire.
The results are published online in the open access journal Plos One. The research paper’s lead authors are conservation biologists Jean-Louis Kouakou, Sery Gonedelé Bi and Eloi Anderson Bitty.
“In pre-colonial and colonial times Côte d’Ivoire probably hosted one of the largest elephant populations in West Africa, resulting in the country’s name,” the study says.
“We present updated information on the distribution and conservation status of forest elephant in Côte d’Ivoire based on multiple sources—dung counts on line transects, records of human–elephant conflict, media reports, sign and interview surveys—obtained during the period 2011–2017.”
The research team found forest elephant populations were isolated, small in numbers, highly vulnerable and faced an uncertain future.
“Forest elephants will be extinct in Côte d’Ivoire unless immediate actions are implemented to safeguard the remaining population,” the study says.
It calls for the global conservation status of Côte d’Ivoire’s forest elephants to be urgently upgraded to Critically Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The IUCN’s Red List of threatened species currently classifies the elephants as Vulnerable.
“During the three last three decades, elephant populations have been sharply reduced, mainly because of forest agricultural clearing,” the study says.
“Aggressive conservation actions including law enforcement for the protection of their remaining habitat and ranger patrolling are needed to protect the remaining forest elephant populations.”
It says warnings “that this species might be lost were put forward in 1984” but there has been little data collected to track population and forest habitat declines.
“At the outset of the 20th century, there were sixteen million hectares of high canopy forest existed in Côte d’Ivoire; today, that number is four millions ha and declining due to an annual deforestation rate of approximately 1 per cent.
“The remaining forest of Côte d’Ivoire is highly fragmented and largely consists of nominally protected national parks and forest reserves. Wildlife in these protected areas is threatened by hunting, the encroachment of cocoa plantations on reserve borders, and expansion of illegal cocoa farming within the parks and reserves themselves.”
The most recent data on the population of Côte d’Ivoire elephants were collected at least a decvade ago “and most of these data did not follow a standardized protocol”.
The six-year survey found that over the past 20 years, the number of forest elephants in Côte d’Ivoire had declined by 90 per cent.
“In the same time, the number of [protected areas] harboring forest fragment fell by 80 per cent. The large majority of the PAs has lost its entire elephant populations as a consequence of the lack of conservation measures, conversion of protected areas into plantations, human settlement and poaching.”
The study says habitat loss has been “a dominant factor shaping population change” and distribution of forest elephants. It has led to increased conflict with human populations outside of protected areas, and exposed elephants to poaching. The rapid expansion of cocoa plantations has also increased vulnerability, with remaining populations “isolated in PAs surrounded by agriculture plots.”
But the researchers say the study has also shown the country’s conservation programs have made a difference.
“Our study has shown that the commitment of highly motivated government field staff, and the continued support by international organizations to provide some protections on the ground, made a difference for their survival as revealed by the survival of forest elephants in protected areas such as Dassioko Sud and Port Gauthier.
“In sites where this protection could not be provided, elephant populations have been extirpated. Therefore, even limited efforts to invest in conservation during periods of political turmoil have benefits for biodiversity.”
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