_{WTI Executive Director & CEO Vivek Menon makes a point during the IUCN Asian Elephant Specialist Group meeting}

Honolulu, Hawaii, September 5, 2016: Even as India celebrates Ganesh Chaturthi, the day of homecoming of the elephant-headed god, an announcement made yesterday during a meeting of the IUCN Asian Elephant Specialist Group sought to highlight the sorry plight of elephants across Asia, and the setting up of a much-needed regional platform to develop cohesive strategies for their conservation.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and its partner Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) will be serving as technical partners to the Asian Giants Conference that is set to take place September 2017 in Sri Lanka. This announcement was made at the IUCN World Conservation Congress taking place in Hawaii.

The conference will give government, NGO, private sector and scientific stakeholders a unique opportunity to share data, expertise and lessons learned in order to develop integrated regional strategies they can use to protect elephants and whales throughout Asia.

“I congratulate Prime Minister Wickremesinghe for his farsightedness in hosting this conference.  As the largest mammals of the sea and land, whales and elephants play critical roles in their ecosystems, and taking a regional approach to their conservation will greatly improve our odds of success,” said Wildlife Trust of India’s CEO and Executive Director Vivek Menon.

The conference comes as a result of talks IFAW had with Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in May on the importance of conservation and working regionally to achieve positive outcomes.

_{Azzedine Downes, President & CEO, IFAW addresses delegates during the IUCN World Conservation Congress}

“It was my great pleasure to visit Sri Lanka in May to meet with the Prime Minister and I have been incredibly impressed with his commitment to conservation,” said Azzedine Downes, President and CEO, IFAW. “We at IFAW are proud to serve as a technical partner in the Asian Giants Conference – which will be a powerful platform for regional collaboration to protect elephants and whales.”

Habitat destruction and fragmentation pose the biggest threat to wild elephant populations in Asia. IFAW and WTI have worked to protect critical elephant habitats by improving park security, securing linkages that connect parks, mitigating human-elephant conflicts, encouraging communities to realize the benefits from non-consumptive alternative livelihood opportunities – such as ecotourism – and involving communities to be part of solutions.  This work has included protecting the last 400 remaining wild elephants in China, tripling the size of India’s Manas National Park and creating the Center for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC), the leading wildlife rehabilitation facility in India.

Numerous whale populations are under threat – from commercial whaling, entanglement, ship strikes and ocean noise. IFAW’s network of whale experts includes leaders in conservation science, research and policy advocacy.  Experience in coastal regions of the US, Caribbean, Iceland, Australia and Japan has demonstrated that whale watching, a non-consumptive sustainable use of whales that generates several billion dollars annually in revenues, can provide sustainable economic development opportunities in coastal regions.

More information about the Asian Giants conference will be revealed in the coming months.