Elephants need our help. Advancement of conservation efforts aimed at protecting the largest land mammals on Earth are hindered by the current system of data collection and analysis. Data on elephant populations, poaching and ivory seizures, though collected and submitted by range nations, is held exclusively by the CITES secretariat and United Nations bodies (IUCN, the African Elephant Specialist Group and UNEP) who analyze and generate reports to inform CITES and member parties.

Established pathways of action - stopping the killing, demand, and trafficking of elephants as well as empowering African communities - require the data that is currently being withheld in order to make these strategies adaptive, and therefore more effective. Sign this petition so elephant population, poaching and ivory seizure data is open to all scientists. We cannot allow data, that governments and non-governmental organizations have invested large amounts of time and money into, to sit around and be forgotten. The elephant never forgets, so why should we? Access to this data will only result in a more successful global conservation strategy.

This monopoly of data has several negative repercussions:

1. It steals opportunities from scientists of elephant range nations to participate in scientific analysis and interpretation for their own governments.

2. The reports are frequently used only for CITES purposes and therefore are not timely for needs of nations facing the most urgent crises.

3. The analyses are used primarily for purposes of CITES and so have not been made available for other important uses, such as regional and national needs for saving elephants.

We urge CITES to agree to the following:

1. Make all data, especially given that this data is gathered by governments using public funds generated by taxes of citizens, available openly for use by scientists, especially those from Africa.

2. Encourage and accept submission from independent organizations and scientific institutions to conduct and publish peer-reviewed independent analyses of the same data in CITES distributed reports.