Meet Save-Elephants
As a result of direct testimonies of elephant poaching in Africa, Czech naturalist Arthur F. Sniegon and friends founded Save-Elephants, z.s. in 2012, which implements and supports concrete conservation actions. Over the course of the association's history, the focus of its work has shifted from basic research, biomonitoring and documentation of wildlife and poaching, to investigations of the black ivory trade and involvement in the arrest of traffickers, to collaborating to establish and lead field patrols of detection dogs to detect smuggled ivory, bushmeat and munitions.
The organization also works with rural people to seek a more harmonious coexistence with wildlife, mainly through the use of beehive barriers or electric fences to reduce the devastation of peasants' fields by grazing elephants and hippos.
Author of photo: Radek Karkys
Save-Elephants is built on the pillars of volunteerism and international cooperation with partners. They believe that long-term conservation success is only possible with the greatest possible involvement of local people.
Elephants are becoming extinct
This includes the larger savanna elephants in the Central African region and the critically endangered forest elephants, which are already considered a separate species. Despite legal protections and international ivory trade bans in place, poaching for their tusks continues to be a major culprit in elephant declines. Poaching may be localised by locals, but the trade is driven by demand from buyers, particularly from the Far East, and is highly globalised and compounded by rampant corruption, instability and poverty. The disappearance of elephants would have far-reaching consequences for entire natural communities, the economies of many areas and the global climate - the carbon sequestration capacity of African forests would be reduced by 6-9%.
Indeed, this is an imminent threat in the case of forest elephants - their total population has declined by 86% in 31 years, while savanna elephants have seen a 60% decline in the last 50 years. In addition, Central Africa's wildlife is also being reduced by the poaching of other species for meat, bushmeat (including ape meat), which also poses a significant health risk. Although the rainforest is being cleared at a slower rate than in other tropical regions, and this is mostly done selectively, this and encroaching agriculture, oil palm cultivation and expanding mineral extraction are also causing a decline in the natural habitat of elephants and other species.
Save-Elephants' main area of fieldwork is the Tsoulou Reserve in southern Congo and also rural communities in south-western Chad.
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