It’s easy to assume that something that lives in a foreign country thousands of miles away will always be here for us. And that one day when we’ve made enough money, collected enough air miles, and put in enough hours, we’ll be able to hop on a plane to see these magnificent creatures in the flesh. The number of African elephants are dwindling. You can help by signing the petition. (Photo courtesy of Blood Ivory.) From 1979, there were 1.3 million African elephants. A decade later, widespread poaching reduced that figure to 600,000. In 1989, a worldwide ban on ivory trade was approved by CITES (Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species). Levels of poaching fell dramatically, and black-market prices of ivory slumped. On March 13, CITIES will host a conference about the African elephant population and the ivory trade. Not everyone is in agreement. Representatives from Tanzania and Zambia will ask that protection levels of African elephants be reduced. They are pushing to sell several tons of illegal ivory through a loophole—even though there is a ban in place. If this trade goes ahead, the door to poaching will open even wider than before. Sign the Petition Please sign this petition to help the elephants. If Tanzania and Zambia get their way, many fear for the future survival of Africa’s elephants. For Sierra Leone’s elephants it’s too late. The government of Sierra Leone announced at the end of 2009 that it feared its last few elephants had been lost to poachers. The African Elephant Coalition, formed of 23-African elephant range States (the majority of countries with wild African elephants), are opposing the Tanzanian and Zambian proposals. Instead, they are calling on the international community to support a proposal by Ghana, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Mali, Kenya, Liberia, and Sierra Leone to close the loophole in the moratorium, and extend it to 20 years. They believe that only resolute action of this kind can increase the security for Africa’s beleaguered elephants.