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The Benefits of Healthy Lion AFRICAN WILDLIFE News SPRING 2020 Page 3 New Study on Elephants THE BENEFITS & Carbon-Storing Forests Page 5 OF HEALTHY Fighting to End the Illegal Wildlife Trade in Ethiopia LION POPULATIONS Page 6 Read story on page 4 A Lodge Helping to Save Rwanda’s Gentle Giants YOUR SUPPORT AT WORK ACROSS AFRICA’S LANDSCAPES THE PRAGMATIC ELEPHANTS HELP SHAPE CONSERVATION Miller Bruce CARBON-STORING FORESTS ARGUMENT Lending new insight into the complex releasing oxygen. They act as a natural interdependencies of rainforest “carbon sink,” performing a vital Our mission is to ensure wildlife and ecosystems, researchers have found that ecosystem service and slowing the rate of wild lands thrive in modern Africa. elephants help forests store carbon. climate change. Dear AWF Friends, AWF SENIOR STAFF Kaddu Sebunya The discussions and the debate about conservation in Africa The researchers modeled the effects of The study was led by Stephen Blake of Chief Executive Officer encompass ideals, values, and even moral beliefs, but there forest-elephant extinction and found that, Saint Louis University and published in Richard Holly without elephants, western and central Nature Geoscience. “The simulation found Chief Financial Officer are also pragmatic considerations such as the benefits that ecosystems provide. We can’t survive without the water or African rainforests would have much less that the slow-growing plant species Craig Sholley Senior Vice President food security that healthy ecosystems support, without the aboveground biomass. This deficit would survive better when elephants are present,” Eric Coppenger plants and fungi that give us life-saving medicines, the trees lead to the release of billions of tons more Blake said. “These species aren’t eaten Vice President, International that sequester carbon, their roots that keep our soil intact. carbon into the atmosphere. by elephants and, over time, the forest Policy & Government Relations becomes dominated by these slow-growing Charly Facheux Vice President, Conservation Strategy, Ecosystems also support sustainable livelihoods, especially The researchers say that when elephants species. Wood (lignin) has a carbon Knowledge Management & Impact tourism-based enterprises, that are aligned with many are gone, smaller, fast-growing tree species backbone, meaning it has a large number of Lindsay Hance Kosnik Africans’ dreams of continued progress on the continent thrive. But when elephants are around to carbon molecules in it. Vice President, Development feed on these trees, larger trees with high- & Public Engagement without a sacrifice of biodiversity. density wood are more prevalent. These “Slow-growing high wood density species Brian McBrearity Vice President, Technology & Innovation In this newsletter, you’ll see a few of the many ways in which wildlife support ecosystem slower-growing trees are better at contain more carbon molecules per unit services. Research shows that elephants shape forests in a way that aids carbon Philip Muruthi storing carbon. volume than fast-growing low wood Vice President, Conservation sequestration, and a recent report details how lions, as critical apex predators, keep density species. As the elephants thin the Science & Planning landscapes healthy and productive. The elephants represent a carbon storage forest, they increase the number of slow- service of $43 billion, the researchers said. growing trees, and the forest is capable of EDITORIAL STAFF But, as you know, the endangered species that help sustain our life-giving landscapes are Trees take in carbon dioxide from the storing more carbon.” David Onate under threat. Habitat destruction, poaching, human encroachment on protected areas, Director, Marketing & Creative atmosphere and use it in photosynthesis, human-wildlife conflict — all put Africa’s wildlife at serious risk. Jacqueline Conciatore Writer & Editorial Manager While conservation in Africa requires global participation, it ultimately depends on Laurie Channer Print Marketing Manager Africa itself. This means drawing on the cultural value that elephants, lions, and other wildlife have in African society and building consensus about the importance of species’ Jim Louden Billy Dodson Design & Digital Development Manager survival. Success depends on people, governments, and industry recognizing that Global body CITES Sonia Ebong conservation imperatives are not just about the innate worth of species and wild lands, Design Assistant but also about a range of other values that are at risk. Rebecca Wesloh approves first-ever Print Marketing Associate Africa’s economic development and conservation are convergent, not conflicting goals. It Contributors giraffe protections Peter Chira, Harleen Sehmi is a misleading dilemma, supposing that wildlife and wild landscapes must be sacrificed for the continent to modernize and maintain its economic growth. The challenge is, how Threats such as habitat loss and poaching Scientists are calling KENYA - HEADQUARTERS do we align today’s development goals and blueprints and marshal the various interests jeopardize the future of Africa’s giraffes. giraffe population Ngong Road, Karen they represent to ensure wildlife has a robust future in modern Africa? P.O. Box 310, 00502 Late last summer, member nations of trends a “silent Nairobi CITES (the Convention on International extinction” occurring Phone +254 (0) 711 063000 AWF is tackling this challenge. But ultimately the commitment must come from a Fax +254 20 2765030 multitude of stakeholders — governments, industry leaders, the private sector, and civil Trade in Endangered Species) transferred right under our noses. society — all working with groups like ours. all nine subspecies of giraffe to Appendix Africa has lost 40 UNITED STATES II, which means that trade in giraffe percent of its giraffe 1100 New Jersey Avenue SE, Ste. 900 I urge everyone to raise their voices for a green, sustainable, creatively inclusive future. hides and other parts will be regulated herd in three decades and now has a Washington, DC 20003 Let’s demand and fight for a vision of the possible — for yourself and the great for the first time. It should now be much total population of less than 100,000. AWF GLOSSARY Toll Free +1 888 494 5354 Phone +1 202 939 3333 continent of Africa. harder for countries to import or export Fax +1 202 939 3332 giraffe products. “We note that, compared to other species, range state giraffe conservation and management [email protected] Sincerely, The proposal to start regulating giraffe is relatively poorly understood,” said \ rānj stāt\ trade received overwhelming support Philip Muruthi, AWF’s vice president for African Wildlife News is published quarterly. A country in which any given © 2020 African Wildlife Foundation from CITES Parties gathered in Geneva, species conservation and science, and Switzerland. It was put forward by the leader of AWF’s delegation to CITES. He species lives, or through which Front cover photo: Andy Rouse Central African Republic, Chad, Kenya, urged giraffe range states to strengthen it travels as part of its normal Kaddu Sebunya Mali, Niger, and Senegal, who argued protection efforts and to learn from the migration. Kenya is a giraffe Chief Executive Officer that all nine subspecies of giraffes must experiences of Angola and South Africa, range state, for example. be protected to counter the species’ fast- which have managed to increase their plummeting numbers. giraffe numbers. 2 AFRICAN WILDLIFE News | SPRING 2020 WWW.AWF.ORG 3 AWF ROUNDUP HEALTHY LION IN ETHIOPIA, FIGHTING TO END POPULATIONS VonHoffmann Barbara THE ILLEGAL WILDLIFE TRADE Over the last several decades, traffickers AWF will provide training and equipment PROVIDE have steadily robbed Ethiopia of its to support officers, prosecutors, and judges wildlife heritage. Where tens of thousands in wildlife crime detection, investigation, SIGNIFICANT of elephants used to range throughout prosecution, and sentencing. The goal is Ethiopia, save in the remotest highlands, to ensure traffickers face penalties that BENEFITS today elephants occur only in a few match the seriousness of their crimes. A GOOD PARTNER FOR areas and number 1,500 or less. This We also will train customs and security AWF'S CANINES FOR decline represents a 90 percent loss of the officers in contraband detection and CONSERVATION One of Africa's most iconic country’s elephants. concealment techniques. Royal Canin recently donated 36,000 species represents a range of euros’ worth of food to AWF's Canines Addis Ababa Bole International Airport The canines project involves selecting for Conservation program. A healthy diet life-giving ecosystem services. is a transit point for much of the illicit handlers from the Ethiopian Wildlife is essential for our detection dogs, who cargo leaving Ethiopia. In recent years Conservation Authority (EWCA), training Paul Runze Paul perform a critical task: sniffing thousands authorities have arrested hundreds of them at our canine center in Tanzania, and A new report supported by AWF and And yet, lions are in trouble. Africa's of pieces of luggage and tons of cargo for individuals smuggling ivory and other helping EWCA establish the unit at Bole. others details the valuable ecosystem populations have declined by half in 20 smuggled wildlife goods such as ivory and contraband to China. AWF has Africa’s leading canine detection services provided by "lionscapes," or years. Threats include habitat loss, human- rhino horns. With their powerful noses, our program, with
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