By the 1980s, most of the 3,000 elephants living in the Kunene region of Namibia had been hunted for their ivory tusks. Now numbers are gradually increasing, but the animals are clashing with local communities for water and land.

At a glance
Since the 1989 ban on ivory product exports, and the successful initiation of a community-based approach to conservation in Namibia, the desert elephant’s population has gradually increased. Now elephants are returning to areas where they haven’t lived for 25 years due to the threat of hunting.

Some communities have accepted the elephants back, and live peacefully with them in ‘conservancies’. These are mixed farming and conservation areas where communities play an active role in sustainable wildlife management, and get rights in return.

What is the threat?
The newest elephant ranges bring animals into conflict with villagers over water. An elephant can drink up to 227 litres of water a day and will break pipes and pumps to get at it. Unless people are benefiting directly from living with wildlife, they will chase and harass it, and demand that the government gets rid of it.
 
What are charities doing to help?
The new Namibian government adopted a community-based approach to conservation that became policy in 1990. The Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation helps to keep the peace between elephants and the local communities.  For example, they provide elephant-drinking points 1km away from villages to help villagers set up tourism businesses so they directly benefit from living with wildlife.

‘An elephant can drink up to 227 litres of water a day and will break pipes and pumps to get at it.’

What can I do to help?

• Support holistic products that promote development as well as conservation in ways that empower the Africans who live with wildlife.
• Buy Fair Trade products. The label shows that goods are produced under fair conditions with fair wages.
• Save precious water. Reduce your usage by changing your lifestyle.

Did you know?

• African elephants are capable of making a wide variety of vocal sounds, such as grunts, purrs, bellows, whistles, and the obvious trumpeting.
• An elephant is surprisingly nimble, and is able to negotiate steep terrain, swim in deep water and stand on its hind legs with the help of a tree.
• Elephant skin is incredibly thick - up to 2.5cm in some places - and rough to the touch.  However, it’s also very sensitive.
• Elephants keep themselves cool and pest-free by wallowing in mud and flinging dust on themselves with their trunks.
• There are records of very old bulls with 130kg tusks measuring as long as 3.5m.
• The tusks are used mainly for feeding, prising bark from trees and digging for roots. They also function as weapons in social encounters.
• In addition to its tusks, the elephant has large, grinding teeth. Each one is used until it wears out, then another grows through the jaw to replace it.
• An elephant cannot reach the ground with its mouth because its neck is too short.  It uses its trunk to pick up food from the ground as well as from trees. This versatile organ has many other uses including smell, touch, drinking (water is sucked into the trunk and then squirted into the mouth), throwing dust and amplifying calls. It can even act as a snorkel when the elephant is swimming!
• Elephants are thought to communicate with each other by stamping and ‘listening’ to each other through their feet - elephants can interpret slight vibrations they pick up in the ground.