Delegates from Africa and Asia begin a two-day meeting of the Technical Advisory Group on the Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) in Accra on Monday to discuss the long-term management of elephant populations.

A statement issued by the Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission on Saturday, said MIKE is a programme adopted by parties to the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of wild fauna and flora (CITES) in 2000 with the main purpose of providing information needed for elephant range countries to make appropriate management and enforcement decision.

The statement said the MIKE Technical Advisory Group has the responsibility of ensuring the standardisation of methods used to monitor elephant populations and ensure that sound analytical methods are applied to field data that are able to detect trends of elephant populations throughout Africa and Asia.

CITES is a system of monitoring of illegal killings of elephants, established to develop methods of ensuring that the trade in elephant products does not negatively affect the survival of the species.

The two-day MIKE Technical Advisory Group meeting would be followed by the MIKE Database Training workshop at the University of Ghana, Legon.