John,

Elephants are super smart – as close to humans as apes, yet we’re literally killing them to extinction.

Poachers are murdering dozens of elephants a day, sometimes cutting their faces off with machetes while they are still alive – just to sell ivory trinkets.

It’s heartbreaking. Elephants understand what is happening to them and their families, they even identify bones and spend hours crying over them. Poaching is so emotionally devastating that it can take a herd 20 years to recover!

Their biggest hope for survival has been a global ivory ban that for over 35 years has saved countless elephants from this gruesome fate – poaching rates are still dropping. Yet governments like Japan and South Africa want to overturn the ban!

World leaders will soon gather at the Endangered Species Convention and the ivory ban is on the agenda. To make sure it’s kept in place, we need to get moving now to build a massive wave of public pressure and show them that millions want to protect elephants. From lobbying decision-makers to polling and hard-hitting ads to backing ranger protection programmes – together we can tip the balance to give these intelligent creatures a chance.

A legal ivory trade could wipe out endangered populations forever. Can you help us save them – and continue our work to protect all creatures big or small?

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These highly intelligent, social and sensitive creatures form lifelong family bonds – elephants even act as social "influencers" in their tight-knit communities! They’re absolutely critical to maintaining a healthy ecosystem for countless other species too, but their numbers are plummeting fast.

Already 20,000 of them are killed each year by illegal poachers, and a new surge in demand for their tusks to make art and jewellery is quickly pushing these majestic animals to the brink of extinction. 90% of their populations have been killed off!

The global ivory trade ban is keeping elephants from disappearing altogether. The clock is against us at the current rate of killing…if the ban disappears, in little more than a decade, there may be no wild elephants, only graves.

The good news is that West and Central African countries, which are home to the majority of African forest elephant populations, are in favor of keeping the ban in place.

It’s South Africa and Japan that want to overturn the ban and legalize the ivory trade – to boost income for conservation initiatives of all reasons! Instead of enabling a legal ivory trade, conservation efforts should be going towards protecting endangered elephant populations, tackling habitat loss and planning for human and elephant co-existence. These solutions would also provide jobs for locals and create sustainable tourism opportunities.

The upcoming Endangered Species Convention is the perfect moment to show them that millions of us want to protect elephants and keep the ivory ban in place for good. With enough of us chipping in we can make it happen, running the right pressure tactics when needed to win – and keep up the pressure to protect wildlife everywhere.

We’ve stopped this type of cruelty before – let’s do it again and protect the world’s last elephants before it’s too late. Can you chip in?

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