Conservationists warn African forest elephants close to extinction

Africa's forest elephants could be extinct within a decade because of rampant poaching, according to a conservation advocacy group.
A report released by the Wildlife Conservation Society says 62 percent of the species' population has disappeared in the last ten years.
The forest elephant is viewed as a separate species from the better-known savannah elephant.
It is slightly smaller, and has longer tusks of harder ivory.
According to the report - the largest ever conducted on the species - a third of the land where the forest elephants were able to live a decade ago has become too dangerous for them.
The reason is depressingly familiar.
"The cause of this massive decline is poaching... partly for bushmeat, but primarily for ivory, driven by increasing demand from the markets of the Far East," Dr Elizabeth Bennett of the Wildlife Conservation Society told reporters in Bangkok, where the report was launched.
Over the last few years, as Asian economies have grown and demand for ivory has risen, the slaughter of elephants has reached its worst level in more than two decades.
Last year alone, some 32-thousand elephants were killed in Africa, according to the Born Free Foundation, which says black-market ivory sells for around 1,300 US dollars per pound.
Much of it ends up as tourist trinkets and carvings.
CITES banned the international ivory trade in 1989, but the move did not address domestic markets.
"They are losing their ecological importance in a lot more areas and that's a cause of real concern because that affects a lot of other species as well," Dr Bennett said.
The report comes as the important CITES meeting is under way in Bangkok, and it will be seen as further reason to push for more concerted action against the factors aiding the poachers: weak law enforcement, poor governance and corruption.
CITES meeting brings together 178 countries under a UN framework that looks to ensure that commercial trade in wildlife does not threaten species' survival.