World Elephant Day 2021: Know history, significance and aim (India)

A herd of elephants. Image: As originally published by the Hindustan Times

Susmita Pakrasi, Hindustan Times | August 12, 2021

World Elephant Day is celebrated every year on August 12. Initiated by the Elephant Reintroduction Foundation and filmmakers Patricia Sims and Michael Clark in 2011, the first international Elephant Day was celebrated on August 12, 2012.

World Elephant Day was launched to highlight the difficulty of Asian and African elephants, which face many threats like poaching, habitat loss, conflict with humans and being mistreated in captivity.

“World Elephant Day is a rallying call for people to support organisations that are working to stop the illegal poaching and trade of elephant ivory and other wildlife products, protect wild elephant habitat, and provide sanctuaries and alternative habitats for domestic elephants to live freely,” Sims is quoted as saying on the website of World Elephant Day.

Significance of World Elephant Day

World Elephant Day is celebrated on August 12 every year to help protect elephants for maintaining the biodiversity of rainforests. This day is marked by raising awareness about the difficulty of the elephants in the forests and also finding out possible ways to protect them.

Purpose of World Elephant Day

The main aim of World Elephant Day is to make people aware of better treatment of captive elephants and against their illegal poaching and trade for ivory.

Read the original story here.