The purpose of this project is to have a better understanding of the trends and patterns of illegal killing of elephants in south Asia, which will be used as a basis for improved international, sub-regional and national decision making in support of elephant conservation. This goal will be achieved through several objectives: 1) The design and development of MIKE (Monitoring of Illegal Killing of Elephants) monitoring systems designed to meet the specific needs of the South Asia region, through a consultation process with the participating range States. This process will collect information on elephant mortality using ranger-based monitoring, as well as information on a range of law enforcement benchmarks. This information collection will enable participating range States and the CITES Conference of Parties (CoP) to better understand the status of law enforcement efforts in South Asia MIKE sites, the link with trends in elephant mortality, and better inform elephant conservation and management efforts. 2) The strengthening of monitoring capacity in participating MIKE sites, with regard to monitoring and management systems and human resources and with a particular focus on the need to embed the monitoring systems in the day-to-day operational and management systems of the participating wildlife agencies. These systems will be designed to promote the long-term sustainability of monitoring capacity. 3) The synthesis, analysis, and reporting of MIKE South Asia monitoring data. This data will be used to inform international decision making at the CITES CoPs, but also as a basis for producing national reports on MIKE South Asia monitoring data on elephant mortality and law enforcement effort for participating wildlife management agencies, in order to better inform their own decision-making processes. 4) The consolidation and strengthening of MIKE South Asia institutional structures. This includes the identification of an appropriate institutional home for the MIKE.
Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants in South Asia
