Demining appeal to save elephants

A California-based NGO, Roots of Peace, has launched a US $1 million appeal for a demining project to save 120,000 elephants in southeastern Angola. The project will clear mines along the migratory paths of elephants in the Luiana Partial Reserve in Cuando Cubango province, near Angola's borders with Namibia and Zambia, to enable them to move north into Angola and Zambia. "The elephants are currently trapped in the reserve and are destroying food crops," Heidi Kuhn, founder and president of Roots of Peace, told IRIN. The elephant population is growing at an annual rate of five percent. The project was announced on Thursday during the Nairobi Summit for a Mine-Free World at the UN Environment Programme headquarters in the Kenyan capital. "As Americans, we want to wage peace in the most heavily mined country in the world," Kuhn said. John Hanks, a consultant with the NGO, Conservation International, warned that if the northern migratory routes were not reopened, the Angolan elephants would spread south into neighbouring Botswana, where the authorities would be forced to cull them. Roots of Peace will work in conjunction with Conservation International and the UK-based Mine Advisory Group (MAG) to clear the mines.