Action for Elephants UK is a grassroots volunteer group working to help stop the slaughter of elephants, advocate against their captivity, and ensure their survival as a species.
Facing the worsening threats of human-elephant conflict, habitat loss, poaching, and the effects of climate change in the wild, and extreme cruelty and suffering in captivity, these majestic creatures need your help more than ever. Learn about their challenges on our website and join us in taking decisive action for their protection and survival.
You can join our Facebook group here.
Elephants Need Our Help
On our website you will find information about the many threats elephants face, as well as the work done by sanctuaries to rescue and rehabilitate badly suffering captive elephants. You’ll also find links to other resources about elephant behaviour and society and information on ethical elephant tourism. Please take a few minutes to learn about these supremely intelligent and emotionally sentient creatures, and to understand the scale of killing that’s wiped out 95% of their population in the past 100 years. Then please take the next step to help in whatever way you can to save wild elephants from vanishing forever.
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.