Thousands of students in Beijing and Haikou of Hainan Province celebrated World Animal Day on October 4 by participating in International Fund for Animal Welfare's Animal Action Week, a public awareness event highlighting the need to protect elephants.

The fund initiated the week 11 years ago. This is the fifth year it has been carried out in China.

Students from colleges, middle schools and primary schools gathered at Beijing's Parkson Centre and Haikou Pearl Square in Haikou of Hainan Province to simultaneously launch opening ceremonies for the event.

In Beijing, a huge painting by 20 students depicting the homeland of elephants was displayed on the ground. The youngsters expressed their desire to protect the giant and wise -- but highly endangered -- elephant and its habitat. In Haikou, thousands of people joined in signing a petition supporting the international ban on ivory trade, a major problem in the devastation of the giant mammal.

In other areas of China, the programme has provided schools with elephant information packs and a film that is introduced by the US movie star, Leonardo DiCaprio. The pack includes a classroom quiz, video, and elephant games, with many other activities associated with the theme of protecting elephants.

The fund's China Office has also built bridges of friendship between Beijing schools and those in rural communities, particularly around nature preserves. Children from big city schools have donated books on conservation to their friends in rural schools, helping one another to jointly understand environmental conservation.

"The week is now a popular activity in schools across the country thanks to the efforts of teachers who are animal welfare and conservation advocates,'' said Dr Zhang Li, country director of IFAW China. "It has helped bring alive conservation education to kids.''

Both African and Asian elephant are facing unprecedented threats from excessive illegal poaching, habitat losses, and, even bush meat consumption.

Indeed, in some central African countries, elephant trunks are served as an expensive wild delicacy. In India, where most of the Asian elephants live, poaching for the ivory of male elephants (only male Asian elephants have the substance) has severely affected the population's male to female ratio. In China, there are only 300 wild elephants.

The ivory trade has been banned by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora since 1989. Yet, illegal ivory trade continues to occur. Only last year, two Chinese men were sentenced for trying to smuggle more than 3 tons of ivory from Africa.

Dr Meng Xianlin, deputy director general of the convention's China Management Authority says the Chinese government has taken a firm stand on this issue.

"We will abide by the international Convention and severely punish those that engage in illegal activities.''

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