There are only 80 wild elephants left in Vietnam thanks to illegal poaching and deforestation, a Thursday Forest Management Bureau workshop was told.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Vietnam was estimated to have as many as 2,000 elephants shortly after the end of the war in 1975.
Vietnam’s Asian Elephant, the largest living land mammal on the continent, is now listed as an endangered species.
The elephants are mostly grouped in the Central Highlands, the central provinces of Thanh Hoa, Nghe An and Ha Tinh and southern Dong Nai Province.
Vietnam’s forests have taken a battering through decades of war and rapid economic and population growth which has led to a minimization of elephant habitats.
Compounding an already dire situation, Vietnamese media have recently reported on several cases of elephants attacking humans as their territories shrink.
Reports have also been posted about increased cases of poaching for ivory and bones for the thriving wildlife trade.
It is estimated that around 4,000 tons of illegal wildlife products pass through Vietnam every year, according to a report by TRAFFIC, an international conservation group that monitors the wildlife trade.
Vietnamese illegal ivory prices could be the highest in the world, with reports of tusks selling for up to US$1,500 a kilogram and small, cut pieces for up to $1,863 a kilogram, according to TRAFFIC.
TRAFFIC said the trade was outlawed in Vietnam in 1992 but a legal loophole allows for traders to sell stock in their possession before the ban; making enforcement of the ban difficult for the country’s environmental police.
The report says neighboring Laos has extensive forests which are home to an estimated wild population of 1,000 elephants. But the demand for ivory in Vietnam has led poachers to make increasing forays into Laos' territory.
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