U.S. Gives $1.2 Million to Protect Elephants

Source: About.com

Date: 28 January 2008

Author: Robert Longley

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has announced it will award $1,277,921 in grants to 15 African countries to assist in the protection of African elephants. Combined with matching contributions from private-sector partners, the total U.S. commitment to elephant conservation will exceed $4 million.

African countries receiving funding include: Botswana, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The grants are funded under authority of the African Elephant Conservation Act, passed by Congress in 1989. In that year, conservationists reported that the surviving population of African elephants had dropped to only 500,000 animals. Today, Congress authorizes the spending of from $1.4 to $5.4 million annually in support of the African Elephant Conservation Fund.

According to an FWS press statement, "The funding will support a diverse range of activities to improve elephant survivorship, including collaring individual elephants to better understand their seasonal movements, supporting anti-poaching efforts (using foot patrols, vehicles, and aircraft), creating environmental education packages for teachers to use in rural schools, and mapping habitat use by local people and their livestock in order to implement more sustainable land use plans."