Dear Executive Vice-President Timmermans, The collapse of Africa’s natural ecosystems through habitat destruction, climate change and over-exploitation of natural resources such as the uncontrolled trade in wildlife, has reached a crisis point, one that is now compounded by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. We, the Council of Elders of the African Elephant Coalition (AEC), an alliance of more than 30 African States, would like to call on the European Commission to consider the impact this pandemic has on Africa’s already strained biodiversity as well as the lives of billions of people...
