Mali's desert elephants face extinction within three years
Source: Reuters
Mali's desert elephants face extinction within three years
Reuters in Dakar
Thursday 28 January 2016 21.49 GMT
Malis elephants, one of just two remaining desert herds in the world, will be gone in three years unless the government does more to protect them, a conservation group has warned.
Poachers have taken advantage of the chaos from a growing Islamist insurgency and other unrest in the lawless north to step up ivory trafficking a trade that the United Nations says funds militants.
Sixteen elephants have been killed so far this month, adding to more than 80 slaughtered in 2015, said Susan Canney, director of Mali Elephant Project for the WILD Foundation.
We have 50 rangers waiting to be deployed but they are held up waiting for official approval and firearms from the government, she told Reuters.
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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/28/mali-desert-elephants-extinction-three-years