This is a wonderful interview with the conservationist John Frederick Walker about ivory and protecting African elephants. He also has a new book out called Ivory’s Ghosts: The White Gold of History and the Fate of Elephants

MEDILL Reports

“Some of the world’s most threatened animals were afforded greater protection this week at the 9th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) taking place in Rome.” – politics.co.uk

“Over the years WWF in collaboration with the North Carolina Zoo has been deploying satellite collars on elephants in the Southeast and other parts of Cameroon. The collars provide information via satellite on the movement pattern of elephants essential for the conservation of this charismatic mega vertebrate.” – AfricaNews

“Ivory went on sale legally yesterday for the first time in almost a decade when the southern African state of Namibia auctioned seven tonnes of elephant tusks exclusively to Chinese and Japanese buyers. ” – Times Online

“Ivory auctions that will take place in Namibia on October 28, Botswana on October 31, Zimbabwe on November 3, and South Africa on November 6 2008 have raised the concerns of international conservationists from Born Free Foundations (BFF), a member of the Species Survival Network, who said that the ivory auction was approved by members of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES), despite an international outcry from scientists and conservationists.” – Sofia Echo

“Kenya’s world famous Amboseli Elephant researchers led by Nairobi based Elephant conservationist Dr. Joyce Poole of 26 years elephant experience will team up with local expertise like Manori Gunawardena to start a long standing study of Asian Elephants along the lines of the African project focusing on the Minneriya-kaudulla Wewa elephant population.” – Asian Tribune

“Sumatra’s endangered elephants and tigers should get a boost from an Indonesian government move to expand one of their last havens, a four-year-old national park on the island, conservation body WWF said on Thursday.” – Reuters

“Elephant House is a makeshift place where the children get an opportunity to explore the Asian elephant through the artistic lens of film, video, painting, photography, music, dance, storytelling and creative writing.” – Newindpress.com

“Sri Lanka’s wild elephant population has shown a marked increase over the last 10 years. ” – Daily News

“His job is to monitor the movements of the recently introduced elephants in the park (previously known as St Lucia Wetland Park) as they move between the eastern and western shore” – IOL

“When a concise history of the achievements and failures of the present government comes to be written, an accusing finger will point to the neglect of certain national assets. Wildlife conservation is likely to be one such casualty; the environment another. But the government still has time to redeem itself and its scorecard could be worse. ” – Bangkok Post

“Elephant-dung pages dispose of a massive waste problem profitably” – csmonitor.com

“Meeting under the auspices of the African Elephant Coalition, the group called upon the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) not to allow China to be a partner in limited ivory trade allowed by the UN body two years ago in The Hague.” – The East African

“African elephant range states meeting in Mombasa, Kenya, have raised exception with undue focus on ivory trade within the CITES framework, saying preference should instead be given to conservation of elephants and mitigating challenges such as human wildlife conflict, law enforcement, building management capacity for range states and establishing mechanisms for local and trans- boundary elephant translocations. ” – International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW)

“Project Elephant (PE), a centrally sponsored scheme, was launched in February 1992 to provide financial and technical support to major elephant bearing States in the country for protection of elephants, their habitats and corridors. It also seeks to address the issues of human-elephant conflict and welfare of domesticated elephants. The Project is being implemented in 13 States / UTs , viz. Andhra pradesh , Arunachal Pradesh , Assam , Jharkhand , Karnataka , Kerala , Meghalaya , Nagaland , Orissa , Tamil Nadu , Uttranchal , Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.” – PIB Press Release

” The Central Highlands province of Dak Lak is the sole location in Vietnam where there remains the tradition of maintaining herds of tame elephants in its districts of Buon Don, Lac, Ea Sup, and Krong Nang. However, the population of tame elephants is sharply falling.” – VietNamNet

“It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to this Introductory Seminar on Conserving the Wild Elephants of Sri Lanka. As you may be aware, this seminar is a prelude to an exciting event this Saturday which will see the release of a number of rehabilitated young elephants to the wild in Uda Walawe. This process of rehabilitation has taken some years. If you have read the introductory piece on each of the elephants, you will notice that some of them had been saved in the nick of time. ” – Lanka Mission

“Sri Lanka on Saturday released eight orphaned baby elephants into the jungle after rescuing them from near certain death, wildlife officials said.” – AFP