ElephantIvoryProject.org began as a website documenting an expedition and conservation storytelling project connected with efforts to improve elephant DNA reference data in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The original site later disappeared. References to it did not. Articles, citations and links remained across National Geographic, conservation publications and older websites, leaving fragments of a project whose original online home was no longer intact.
Why rebuild the site?
The immediate reason was historical. Important external references still pointed to a domain that no longer explained what the Elephant Ivory Project had been.
But restoring only a handful of old pages would have created a museum rather than a useful publication. The rebuilt site therefore preserves the historical material while expanding into the subjects that surrounded the original project: elephant behaviour, research, DNA forensics, ivory trafficking, forest elephants and modern conservation.
What is historical and what is new?
Historical pages are clearly treated as archival material. Where original text survives through reliable sources, the archive reflects it. Where it does not, the site reconstructs chronology and context rather than pretending to reproduce lost writing verbatim.
Modern articles are newly written, research-led pieces based on scientific literature, government publications and established conservation sources.
What this site covers now
The modern publication is organised around several connected areas:
- the original Elephant Ivory Project and expedition archive;
- elephant behaviour and social life;
- field research, tracking and population science;
- DNA and wildlife forensics;
- the illegal ivory trade;
- African forest elephants;
- elephant conservation in Africa and India;
- responsible elephant tourism and wild-elephant viewing.
How we approach evidence
Elephant writing is full of attractive stories that travel faster than the research behind them. This site tries to separate what has been demonstrated from what is merely repeated.
That means using phrases such as “research suggests” where evidence is incomplete, distinguishing old population estimates from current ones, and avoiding claims simply because they make elephants sound more human or more dramatic.
Why field context matters
Science provides the foundation, but field context matters too. Behaviour looks different in a dense Central African forest than it does in an open Kenyan savanna or a human-dominated Indian landscape.
The site therefore aims to explain not just what a paper found, but what that finding means when elephants are moving through real places.
Independent, not institutional
This is not an NGO, scientific institution or official government resource. It is an independent editorial project.
Where articles rely on outside science or conservation data, they should identify the relevant sources so readers can follow the evidence themselves.
Where to begin
If you are interested in the history, start with the project archive. For the science, begin with Elephant Research or Elephant DNA Forensics. For the animals themselves, explore Elephant Behavior and African Forest Elephants.