World Elephant Day 2024: Celebrating Elephants and Promoting Conservation

World Elephant Day 2024: Understanding the Importance of August 12th, Its History, Significance, and Ongoing Conservation Efforts for Elephants

World Elephant Day 2024 is an international event taking place on the 12th of August that aims at increasing consciousness people to the role of elephants in our planet and the need to conserve the endangered animal. This celebration focuses on the different difficulties faced by these beautiful animals and support for all activities towards their conservation in their natural habitats.

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History and Significance: World Elephant Day is commemorated every August 12 since 2012, sponsored by Canadian filmmaker Patricia Sims in collaboration with the Elephant Reintroduction Foundation. Hence, the day was established to respond to the emerging threats to elephants and to call for conservation efforts towards this important icon. It has gradually developed into one of the most important annual gatherings worldwide that represents people and companies as well as local and global authorities who stand together against threats affecting elephants.

Topic for World Elephant Day 2024: The topic for World Elephant Day 2024 is “Elephants – Why We Should Cherish and Preserve Them as Mankind’s Endowment for Life.” Most importantly, it seeks to draw viewer’s attention to the issues surrounding keystone species and encourage people to address them.

Key Facts About Elephants
• Date: August 12
• Purpose: To spread the word to the wider public in order to encourage them to support programs that support the protection of elephants.

IUCN Status:

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• African Forest Elephant: Species that is critically endangered.
• African savanna elephant is an endangered species.
• Asian Elephant – This species of elephant is now listed as endangered species.
• Elephant Population in India: The current estimated population of Asian elephants stands around 29,964 according to surveys conducted in 2017.
• Participation: As listed below, it has got the endorsement of well over 100 renowned wildlife societies and individuals the world over.
• Goals: This paper shall seek to propose the above aims and objectives in order to have a sustainable environment that does not harm the elephants and offers the best in care.
• Why We Celebrate World Elephant Day: Elephants are an interesting species that have a great importance in the preservation of the ecosystem. Their activities contribute significantly to their habitats:Their activities contribute significantly to their habitats:
  • Seed Dispersal: Former Peruvian president Fernando Belaunde Terry recalls elephants being voracious eaters of all sorts of plants, which helps to replant forests and enliven plant species.
  • Forest Regeneration: Their feeding practices also help in maintaining forest undergrowth since they clear part of the forest hood in order to enable sun in germinating new plant shoots.
  • Water Access: This way, elephants contribute to the production of water outlets, which are critical to other animals in this region.
  • Landscape Engineering: Its movements assist in conserving grasslands and avoiding overtones of overgrowth of shrubs, thus benefiting many ecosystems.

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However, elephants face numerous threats due to human activities:
• Poaching: Ivory trade remains a persistent threat even today cutting down subpopulations of elephants especially those in Africa.
• Habitat Loss: They lost significant territories to deforestation and agricultural land expansion which slows down their movement in search of food supplies.
• Human-Elephant Conflict: Again, encroachment into the elephant corridors is inevitable, forcing the elephants to either act in self-defense therefore causing harm to both human life and property.
• Climate Change: They now live in new climatic conditions which has an impact on their ability to source for food and water thereby increasing the pressure on their lives.

Conservation Efforts in India: This paper aimed at assessing the current status of elephants in India and found out that the country has indeed progressed a great deal in elephant conservation.

*Project Elephant: This scheme was started during 1991-92 basically to have a check on the elephant and their places by the process of monitoring and various other strategies of conservation. It has been recently linked to Project Tiger to improve the funcionaing of wildlife proservation.

*Elephant Reserves: Elephant Reserves in India has been officially declared as 33, which spread through 80,777 sq km of protected areas and Corridor.

*Elephant Corridors: These are Natural Corridors recognized under Project Elephant which would help in relocating the elephants avoiding contact with human beings.

*Gaj Gaurav Awards: These awards are given to individuals who have made significant efforts to support the cause of elephants.

*MIKE Programme: Starting from 2003, it was implemented under the CITES to help in tracking poaching activities and improve on elephant population management.

As World Elephant Day 2024 approaches, it is a poignant reminder of the need for concerted global efforts to protect and preserve these incredible creatures.

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