First status report on the African forest elephant: Giants of the forest in danger

Posted on November, 27 2025

The first dedicated African Forest Elephant Status Report shows that only around 135,000 forest elephants remain – not because they are recovering, but because we can finally count them better. As poaching, habitat loss and rising conflict push these “giants of the forest” closer to extinction, WWF is calling for a decisive decade of action to protect their last strongholds in Central Africa.

“The forest elephant is not doing well. Poaching has drastically reduced populations. With a few exceptions like Gabon, protected areas and well-managed logging concessions, the species has largely disappeared from its historical range or survives only in small, scattered populations," explains Dr Thomas Breuer, co-author of the study and WWF forest elephant expert. The slightly higher figures are not a success story, but a methodological update,” “Forest elephants reproduce extremely slowly. Populations that have collapsed due to poaching and habitat loss cannot recover within just a few years. The species remains at acute risk of extinction.”

Central Africa today harbours around 95 per cent of the global population. The largest numbers are found in Gabon, where around 95,000 animals live. This figure is based on much more precise estimates using genetic capture-mark-recapture methods, which have now been applied on a larger scale for the first time. After decades of poaching, habitat loss and fragmentation have become the main threat. Industrial logging, mining and the expansion of large-scale infrastructure and transport projects are cutting up what were once continuous forest landscapes. In addition, there are new and largely unexplored risks, such as the impacts of climate change, the emergence of new diseases and possible negative effects on reproduction and calf survival.

While ivory poaching in the savannas has declined, it remains at a high level in forest areas, according to WWF. At the same time, conflict between people and elephants is increasing significantly. “Habitats are shrinking, and people and elephants are being forced into closer contact. Human–elephant conflicts are escalating, especially in the Congo Basin,” says Breuer. “We are seeing more acts of retaliation and more elephants being killed.”

WWF is currently developing a comprehensive ten-year action plan for the protection of the forest elephant, aligned with the CITES African Elephant Action Plan. In Cameroon, Gabon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic, WWF is already implementing a wide range of measures – from securing and restoring habitats and combating poaching and illegal trade, to promoting long-term coexistence between people and elephants that can be sustained into the future.

Contact: Roland Gramling, WWF Press Office, Tel.: +49 30 311 777 425, [email protected]

Elephants in Dzanga Bai, in the Dzanga Sangha Protected Areas in Central African Republic