Action for Elephants UK is a grassroots group working to help stop the slaughter of elephants, advocate against their captivity, and ensure their survival as a species. On our website you will find information about elephant populations in Africa and Asia, the challenges they face to survive, and the groups that rescue and rehabilitate badly suffering captive elephants. Please take a few minutes to learn about these highly intelligent beings which have been on our planet for millions of years but have seen 95% of their population wiped out by humans in the past one hundred.
Today, besides poaching, the biggest threats to elephants in the wild are conflict with humans, habitat loss, and the effects of climate change, while in captivity they suffer abuse and cruelty. They are also killed by trophy hunters, with even the rarest tuskers being targeted. No place is safe for them, and the political will to protect them in their remaining range countries is not as strong as it needs to be to ensure their long-term survival.
Elephants Need Your Help
You can help to save wild elephants from vanishing forever by supporting groups on the frontlines of elephant protection and conservation, whether in national parks or through local initiatives. You can also help the wonderful work of sanctuaries and groups that rescue orphans and abused elephants and give them a second chance at life. All these groups depend on donations from people like you, like all of us, who want to see elephants saved from extinction and protected from human cruelty and greed. There really is no action or donation too small to help!
You can join our Facebook group here.
What We’ve Achieved
Since our inception we have made strides in the fight to protect elephants in the wild and in bringing attention to their plight in captivity. Through our activism, advocacy, and awareness campaigns we have engaged the public and pressured the government on key legislation to help save elephants. Our marches and protests at Westminster and Downing Street kept the issues highly visible and in the media, especially in the push for an ivory ban, which was finally achieved in the UK Ivory Act 2018, one of the strongest ivory bans in the world.
Our role in keeping pressure on the government for a total ban on ivory, after the government announced in 2016 it would pursue a partial ban, was acknowledged in the House of Commons Briefing Paper on the Ivory Bill of 2017, which said ‘Despite the announcement of a partial ban, the Government had been put under pressure by an Action for Elephants letter to the Prime Minister’, and again in the 2018 Briefing Paper.
We were advisors on the BBC documentary series ‘Saving Africa’s Elephants: Hugh and the Ivory War’, which followed the ivory networks from Africa’s killing fields to the world’s ivory markets and proved the link between current poaching and UK ivory.
Our campaign against the torture of temple elephants in India brought a spotlight to the issue and pressed the call for reform.
During Covid-19 we raised funds for programmes in Thailand that were bringing food to starving elephants left chained at deserted riding camps.
We campaigned for Anne, the solitary elephant at Longleat, with the hope of sending her to sanctuary. Although Longleat wouldn’t let her go, her story received wide media coverage which brought to national attention the plight of elephants in captivity in the UK.
We are members of the Elephant Protection Initiative, the Ivory Engagement Group, and Nature 2030, and support campaigns of other NGOs and groups on the ground fighting for elephants.