{"id":2029,"date":"2022-12-15T17:27:16","date_gmt":"2022-12-15T17:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/savetheelephants.org\/?page_id=2029"},"modified":"2023-06-13T03:59:12","modified_gmt":"2023-06-13T02:59:12","slug":"african-elephant-specialist-group","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/savetheelephants.org\/our-work\/communication\/networks\/african-elephant-specialist-group\/","title":{"rendered":"African Elephant Specialist Group"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/iucn.org\/our-union\/commissions\/group\/iucn-ssc-african-elephant-specialist-group#:~:text=%2B%20Read%20More-,The%20IUCN%20SSC%20African%20Elephant%20Specialist%20Group%20(AfESG)%20is%20a,African%20savannah%20elephant%20(Loxodonta%20africana)\">IUCN SSC African Elephant Specialist Group<\/a> (AfESG) is a global network of over 95 technical experts dedicated to promoting long-term conservation of Africa\u2019s two elephant species, the critically endangered African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) and the endangered African savannah elephant (Loxodonta africana) through their range.<\/p>\n<p>Both species have been declining at continental level due to poaching for their ivory tusks, habitat degradation, the complexities of land use changes leading to challenges in human elephant co-existence. Yet these two keystone species provide invaluable ecological benefits for the forested and grassland landscapes that they inhabit, including seed dispersal, maintenance of savannah-forest mosaics, ground water availability and carbon sequestration (e.g., Berzaghi et al 2019) and socio-economic benefits in instances as well. As such, their conservation is more critical than ever but also complex given significant regional variation in elephant numbers, management, threats and benefits.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_37296\" style=\"width: 876px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-37296\" class=\"wp-image-37296\" src=\"https:\/\/www.savetheelephants.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/WCS-Congo-copyright-Scott-Ramsay-www.scottramsay.africa-3510-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"866\" height=\"577\" srcset=\"https:\/\/savetheelephants.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/WCS-Congo-copyright-Scott-Ramsay-www.scottramsay.africa-3510-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/savetheelephants.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/WCS-Congo-copyright-Scott-Ramsay-www.scottramsay.africa-3510-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/savetheelephants.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/WCS-Congo-copyright-Scott-Ramsay-www.scottramsay.africa-3510-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/savetheelephants.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/WCS-Congo-copyright-Scott-Ramsay-www.scottramsay.africa-3510-800x533.jpg 800w, https:\/\/savetheelephants.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/WCS-Congo-copyright-Scott-Ramsay-www.scottramsay.africa-3510-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/savetheelephants.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/WCS-Congo-copyright-Scott-Ramsay-www.scottramsay.africa-3510-400x267.jpg 400w, https:\/\/savetheelephants.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/WCS-Congo-copyright-Scott-Ramsay-www.scottramsay.africa-3510.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 866px) 100vw, 866px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-37296\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">African forest elephants in Nouabale Ndoki National Park, the Republic of Congo \u00a9 Scott Ramsay<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The IUCN SSC African Elephant Specialist Group (AfESG) is a global network of over 95 technical experts dedicated to promoting long-term conservation of Africa\u2019s two elephant species, the critically endangered African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) and the endangered African savannah elephant (Loxodonta africana) through their range. Both species have been declining at continental level due [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":2230,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/savetheelephants.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2029"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/savetheelephants.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/savetheelephants.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savetheelephants.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savetheelephants.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/savetheelephants.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2029\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savetheelephants.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/savetheelephants.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}