Saving elephants from the ivory trade
Saving elephants is central to EIA’s work. We have a consistently successful track record that includes:
- Disrupting criminal networks through undercover investigations
- Helping achieve a landmark ban on the ivory trade
- Working to close domestic ivory markets
- Exposing the global hub of the illegal ivory trade
- Dismantling ivory trafficking syndicates
- Helping close China’s legal domestic ivory market
- Helping push through the UK bill to ban ivory sales

Herd of savannah elephants
African elephants are at risk of extinction, primarily due to the poaching that feeds the ivory trade. The savannah elephants in East and Southern Africa, as well as the forest elephants of West and Central Africa, are both at serious risk, with numbers in sharp decline.
Combined with habitat loss, human-elephant conflict and the growing pressure of climate change, the ivory trade threatens the survival of these keystone species whose decline will, in turn, have a serious impact on the maintenance of healthy ecosystems, economies and the rule of law.