A HISTORY OF THE ELEPHANT IN GHANA IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission of Ghana notes, ‘the history of elephants in Ghana has yet to be written….'This admission does not mean that there are no studies of the elephant in Ghana.However,little of this has been historical in focus; almost all have been carried out from biological,wildlife,ecological, environmental,economic and anthropological perspectives. This book therefore sets out to give a chronological historical account of the African elephant, highlighting on the main factors that have been responsible for the decline of the elephant population in historical times.It does so by employing multi–disciplinary and qualitative research techniques to examine the history of the African elephant with the spot light on the decline of the species in Ghana and demonstrates how the interplay of factors such as climate change and drought, ivory trade, habitat loss, migration, human population increase, civil wars, proliferation of arms, poaching and control killings have been responsible for the dwindling of the number of the African elephant generally.The book will be useful for conservationists, NGOs, Governments,Historians and the general reading public.