Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania are among eight countries that could face economic sanctions over their failure to prevent widespread elephant poaching.

An official of Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) said the sanctions, which could also be imposed on Thailand, China and Malaysia are being considered because of claims that widespread corruption within both range states and countries receiving poached elephant tusks, is frustrating anti-poaching efforts.

A report by Cites said the elephant population across Africa is now “under severe threat” as the illegal trade in ivory has grown over the past decade.

According to the report, increasing poaching levels, as well as loss of habitat are threatening the survival of the elephant population in Central Africa as well as previously secure populations in West, Southern and Eastern Africa.

Tom Milliken, who runs the official global project that tracks illegal ivory, said every report his group, the Elephant Trade Information System, had made since it started in 1998 had identified Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Thailand, China and Malaysia as the eight nations who are major players in the trade, but to no effect.

“There has been no discernible impact from previous Cites measures,” he said at the 178-nation summit of the Cites in Bangkok. “Unless Cites scales up and takes this seriously, we are not going to win this thing.” He said Cites should be the meeting where sanctions should be used.

Tom de Meulenaer, a senior Cites official, said the body’s ruling committee had finally lost patience over the issue, and if the eight countries did not produce action plans for the next 12 months, it was likely that sanctions would be implemented.

Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda are source countries while Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines are countries through which ivory is smuggled, while Thailand and China are destination countries.

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“The results are quite devastating. “For many of the range states in Central and Western Africa, the extent of the killings now far exceeds the natural population growth rates, forcing their elephants into widespread decline and putting them at risk of extinction in those countries,” the report says.

The report says there is also some criminal intelligence suggesting that fishing vessels moving between Asia and East Africa may be involved in smuggling because they are rarely inspected.

Elephants are also threatened by increasing loss of habitat and subsequent loss of range as a result of rapid human population growth and agricultural expansions.

Currently, some models suggest that 29 per cent of the existing elephant range is affected by infrastructure development, human population growth and rapid urban and agricultural expansion.

The projections are that this figure may increase to 63 per cent by 2050, particularly in West, Central and Eastern Africa.

Disruptions and barriers to seasonal movements of elephants in search of water and forage are also critical threats as their current range becomes increasingly fragmented and disconnected, also leading to increasing human-elephant conflicts.

The report — produced by the UN Environment Programme (Unep), the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (Iucn), and the Wildlife Trade Monitoring Network (Traffic) — says that systematic monitoring of large-scale seizures of ivory destined for Asia is indicative of the involvement of criminal networks, which are increasingly active and entrenched in the trafficking of ivory between Africa and Asia.

Illegal killing

At sites monitored through the Cites-led Monitoring Illegal Killing of Elephants (Mike) programme alone, which hold approximately 40 per cent of the total elephant population in Africa, an estimated 17,000 elephants were illegally killed in 2011.

Initial data from 2012 shows that the situation did not improve. However, overall figures may be much higher.

These threats compound the most important long-term threat to the species’ survival — increasing loss of habitat as a result of rapid human population growth and large-scale land conversion for agriculture, which provides for international markets.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and Unep executive director said: “The surge in the killing of elephants in Africa and the illegal taking of other listed species globally threatens not only wildlife population but the livelihoods of millions who depend on tourism for a living and the lives of those wardens and wildlife staff who are attempting to stem the illegal tide.”

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John Scanlon, Secretary-General of Cites said: “This report provides clear evidence that adequate human and financial resources, the sharing of know-how, raising public awareness in consumer countries, and strong law enforcement must all be in place if we are to curb the disturbing rise in poaching and illegal trade.”

The report recommends critical actions, including improved law-enforcement across the entire illegal ivory supply chain and strengthened national legislative frameworks.

Training of enforcement officers in the use of tracking, intelligence networks and innovative techniques, such as forensic analysis, is urgently needed.

Poaching is spreading primarily as a result of weak governance and rising demand for illegal ivory in the rapidly growing economies of Asia, particularly China, which is the world’s largest destination markets.