Accra, Aug. 22, GNA - The Ministry of Lands, Forestry and Mines on Tuesday expressed disappointment at the dwindling elephant population in Ghana and appealed to the international community to help to develop strategies that would help to improve their status.

Mr Andrew Agyei Yeboah, Deputy Sector Minister who made the appeal at the opening of a three-day international symposium on "African Elephants Conservation", said that with the small and scattered populations of elephants in Ghana, they were becoming extremely vulnerable and it was of great concern to the Government. "The challenges of conservation are many and varied. A rapidly expanding human population, unsustainable land use practices and fragmentation of wildlife ranges pose serious threats to survival of elephants," he said.

Addressing about 40 participants from 20 African countries attending a three-day international symposium in Accra, Mr Yeboah said the Government was revising the laws to address the weaknesses in the existing legislation.

He said the Government was committed to the conservation of biodiversity for the ultimate benefit of the present and future generations.

"We are also committed to collaborating with others at the international level as attested to by Ghana's membership of all the biodiversity related conventions, including the Convention on Biological Diversity; Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals and Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) among other conventions. Mr Yeboah said Ghana's commitment to the conservation of elephants at the international level was beyond doubt and well acknowledged, adding that Ghana was the first country to propose Appendix I listing of the species within the CITES.

He said it was on record that West Africa had only five per cent of the Africa's elephant population out of which Ghana's was only a fraction comprising of about 2,000 elephants. "It is, therefore, important that Ghana's Elephant Conservation strategy developed in year 2000, was implemented to the fullest," he said.

Mr Yaw Ofori-Frimpong, Executive Director of the Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission, said most of the elephants in Ghana were located within national parks and wildlife resource reserves with very few outside the protected areas.

He said those found outside the protected areas included the cross-border populations shared by Ghana and Burkina Faso along the Red Volta corridor with its associated illegal hunting. He called for the strengthening of collaborations among the countries surrounding Ghana to solve the issues that has international dimension while at the same time addressing the issues that were country specific.

Mr Ofori-Frimpong said the growing human population near the protected areas with virtually no buffer zone between the agriculturally dominated landscape around the protected area and the wildlife reserve themselves posed great challenges that needed collective ideas and inputs from all to manage.

"Human-wild life conflicts have the potential to escalate due to the increasing clearing of lands around the protected areas and may continue unless a solution is found to address this phenomenon," he said.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) is sponsoring the three-day conference.

Mr Michael Wamithi, IFAW International Advisor for Africa, said his organisation was working around the clock to curb all wildlife crimes.