Today’s elephants are under increasing pressure from habitat loss (due to explosive human population growth), poaching for ivory, and illegal trafficking.

Asian elephants are classified as endangered, and their population is declining. African elephants are considered near threatened, but a resurgence in elephant poaching is taking its toll.

To help raise awareness for these magnificent mammals, here are 12 things you didn’t know about elephants - and a compilation of beautiful photos (with baby elephants who will steal your heart)! Enjoy!

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In early December 2004, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo “ordered the military and police to crack down on illegal logging, after flash floods and landslides, triggered by rampant deforestation, killed nearly 340 people,” according to news reports. Fifteen years earlier, in 1989, the government of Thailand announced a nationwide ban on tree cutting following severe flooding and the heavy loss of life in landslides. And in August 1998, following several weeks of record flooding in the Yangtze River basin and a staggering $30 billion worth of damage, the Chinese government banned all tree cutting in the upper reaches of the basin. Each of these governments had belatedly learned a costly lesson, namely that services provided by forests, such as flood control, may be far more valuable to society than the lumber in those forests.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the earth’s forested area was estimated at 5 billion hectares. Since then it has shrunk to just under 4 billion hectares, with the remaining forests rather evenly divided between tropical and subtropical forests in developing countries and temperate/boreal forests in industrial countries. Since 1990, the developing world has lost some 13 million hectares of forest a year. This loss of about 3 percent each decade is an area roughly the size of Greece. Meanwhile, the industrial world is actually gaining an estimated 5.6 million hectares of forestland each year, principally from abandoned cropland returning to forests on its own and from the spread of commercial forestry plantations. Thus, net forest loss worldwide exceeds 7 million hectares per year.

Unfortunately, even these official data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) do not reflect the gravity of the situation. For example, tropical forests that are clearcut or burned off rarely recover. They simply become wasteland or at best scrub forest, yet they still may be counted as “forest” in official forestry numbers. Plantations, too, count as forest area, yet they also are a far cry from the old-growth forest they sometimes replace.

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The Fair Trade movement began in North America with small non-profit and church-affiliated organizations buying high-quality hancrafted goods from small cooperating groups of women, and bringing them directly to market in the U.S. and Canada. At the same time in Eurpoe, Dutch organization Max Havelaar began importing coffee from small coffee co-operatives in the South. The emphasis was on direct, long-term trade relationships with small, democratically organized co-operatives. The mere size of the organizations involved in these relationships acted as a guradian of integrity. Now that larger organizations with different core values are involved on both sides, some in the Fair Trade movement are worried that it will no longer be able to deliver on its promises to producers and consumers.

Equal Exchange, a pioneer and Fair Trade market leader in the U.S. since 1986, is trying to remind the newcomers to the movement of its heritage. The small vs. large producer dichotomy is most pronounced in the Fair Trade tea market, where 99% of Fair Trade tea is sourced from large plantations. In a move it says is "intended to catalyze changes in the tea industry", Equal Exchange announced on Wednesday the availability of seven new organic, Fair Trade teas sourced almost entirely from democratic co-operatives of small-scale growers in India, Sri Lanka and South Africa. Equal Exchange says it "seeks to demonstrate to both the tea industry and the tea-drinking public that small farmers, and their co-operatives, can produce a variety of excellent, organic teas."

Co-founder and Executive Director Rink Dickinson recently visited two of Equal Exchange's tea partners in India and South Africa, and described the new initiative this way:

Unlike with some other foods or beverages, the small-scale tea grower continues to be overlooked and is never thought about. Our goals are to put the small farmer back into the picture, create an alternative economic model with them, and to show the wider world just how wonderful their tea can be.

Equal Exchange will also show the wider world just how a large wholesaler such as itself can sucessfully source tea from many small cooperatives. De-centralizing production by working with small cooperatives will de-centralize wealth, which is exactly one end the Fair Trade movement has sought since its inception. I applaud Equal Exchange for reminding us all of that goal at this critical time in the evolution of Fair Trade.

Forest Trends, a nongovernmental organization consisting of industry and conservation groups, estimates that at the current rate of logging, the natural forests in Indonesia and Myanmar will be gone within a decade or so. Those in Papua New Guinea will last 16 years. Those in the Russian Far East, vast though they are, may not last much more than 20 years.

Forest losses from clearing land for farming and ranching, usually by burning, are concentrated in the Brazilian Amazon, the Congo Basin, and Borneo. After having lost 93 percent of its Atlantic rainforest, Brazil is now destroying the Amazon rainforest. This huge forest, roughly the size of Europe, was largely intact until 1970. Since then, close to 20 percent has been lost.

Africa’s Congo Basin, the world’s second largest rainforest, spans 10 countries. Like the Amazon rainforest, it is also under assault, primarily from loggers, miners, and farmers. This 190-million-hectare rainforest—home to 400 species of mammals, including the world’s largest populations of gorillas, bonobos, chimpanzees, and forest elephants—is shrinking by 1.6 million hectares a year.

The fast-rising demand for palm oil led to an 8-percent annual expansion in the palm plantation area in Malaysian Borneo (Sarawak and Sabah) between 1998 and 2003. In Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo, growth in oil palm plantings is higher, at over 11 percent. Now that palm oil is emerging as a leading biodiesel fuel, growth in oil palm cultivation will likely climb even faster. The near-limitless demand for biodiesel now threatens the remaining tropical forests in Borneo and elsewhere.

Haiti, a country of 9.6 million people, was once largely covered with forests, but growing firewood demand and land clearing for farming have left forests standing on scarcely 4 percent of its land. First the trees go, then the soil. Once a tropical paradise, Haiti is a case study of a country caught in an ecological/economic downward spiral from which it has not been able to escape. It is a failed state, a country sustained by international life-support systems of food aid and economic assistance.

The biologically rich rainforest of Madagascar, an island country with 18 million people, is following in Haiti’s footsteps. As the trees are cut, either to produce charcoal or to clear land to grow food, the sequence of events is all too familiar. Environmentalists warn that Madagascar could soon become a landscape of scrub growth and sand.

When land is cleared for grazing or farming in the Amazon, the amount of rainfall that runs off and returns to the sea increases, while that which is recycled inland to provide more rainfall is reduced dramatically. The forest begins to dry out, and at some point, the weakened rainforest becomes vulnerable to fire. As the Amazon rainforest weakens, it is approaching a tipping point beyond which it cannot be saved.

A similar situation may be developing in Africa, where deforestation and land clearing are proceeding rapidly as firewood use mounts and as logging firms clear large tracts of virgin forests. As the trees disappear, rainfall runoff increases, depriving the land of the water pumped through trees and into the atmosphere. When the forests disappear, this rainfall declines and crop yields follow.

More and more countries are beginning to recognize the risks associated with deforestation. Among the countries that now have total or partial bans on logging in primary forests are China, New Zealand, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Viet Nam. Unfortunately, all too often a ban in one country simply shifts the deforestation to others or drives illegal logging.

Image credit: World Resources Institute at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

The event features guest speaker Gillian Christie. As founder and CEO of Christie Communications, a communications and public relations firm, Christie works to promote the products and services of ethical companies. She will discuss her perspective on environmental messaging and the opportunities and challenges of differentiating green products in an increasingly crowded market. Christie will also share examples from Sri Lanka and Sudan, detailing how her company gives back in its global quest to promote sustainability and human rights.

Though Net Impact is one of the sponsors, you don’t need to be a member to attend. Both professionals and students are welcome, though there is a fee for entry ($25 for professionals, $20 for students). Dues-paying professional and student members receive discounts ($22 for professionals, $17 for students). Drinks and light snacks will be served.

In case you’re not familiar with Net Impact, it is a nonprofit organization whose mission is “to make a positive impact on society by growing and strengthening a community of new leaders who use business to improve the world.” With more than 10,000 members, the organization spans five continents. Members include leaders in CSR, social entrepreneurship, nonprofit management, international development, and environmental sustainability.

At the event, co-sponsor SustainLane will officially launch the Los Angeles version of its online, community-powered directory of green businesses and products. On the site, you can find and review eco-friendly resources, recommending your favorites to others.

In addition to the directory, the site offers some cool extras. Check out The Unsustainables, an original animated series featuring a family that “stumbles toward the future in an attempt to live green.” Also, you can see where your city ranks in sustainability, thanks to SustainLane’s US City Rankings. Angelenos, we’ve come in at a dismal #25 – we have some work to do to catch up to #1 Portland, OR.

The event is to be held at epOxybOx, an art gallery in Venice that features artists who work with recycled, reclaimed and renewed materials. I’ve been hearing about epOxybOx a lot lately, so I’m excited to check out the space. The event begins at 7pm, and since food and drinks will be served, it seems like a great way to start the evening before heading over to the Green Drinks in Culver City.

A whole night of green – I love it!

Forest Trends, a nongovernmental organization consisting of industry and conservation groups, estimates that at the current rate of logging, the natural forests in Indonesia and Myanmar will be gone within a decade or so. Those in Papua New Guinea will last 16 years. Those in the Russian Far East, vast though they are, may not last much more than 20 years.

Forest losses from clearing land for farming and ranching, usually by burning, are concentrated in the Brazilian Amazon, the Congo Basin, and Borneo. After having lost 93 percent of its Atlantic rainforest, Brazil is now destroying the Amazon rainforest. This huge forest, roughly the size of Europe, was largely intact until 1970. Since then, close to 20 percent has been lost.

Africa’s Congo Basin, the world’s second largest rainforest, spans 10 countries. Like the Amazon rainforest, it is also under assault, primarily from loggers, miners, and farmers. This 190-million-hectare rainforest—home to 400 species of mammals, including the world’s largest populations of gorillas, bonobos, chimpanzees, and forest elephants—is shrinking by 1.6 million hectares a year.

The fast-rising demand for palm oil led to an 8-percent annual expansion in the palm plantation area in Malaysian Borneo (Sarawak and Sabah) between 1998 and 2003. In Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo, growth in oil palm plantings is higher, at over 11 percent. Now that palm oil is emerging as a leading biodiesel fuel, growth in oil palm cultivation will likely climb even faster. The near-limitless demand for biodiesel now threatens the remaining tropical forests in Borneo and elsewhere.

Haiti, a country of 9.6 million people, was once largely covered with forests, but growing firewood demand and land clearing for farming have left forests standing on scarcely 4 percent of its land. First the trees go, then the soil. Once a tropical paradise, Haiti is a case study of a country caught in an ecological/economic downward spiral from which it has not been able to escape. It is a failed state, a country sustained by international life-support systems of food aid and economic assistance.

The biologically rich rainforest of Madagascar, an island country with 18 million people, is following in Haiti’s footsteps. As the trees are cut, either to produce charcoal or to clear land to grow food, the sequence of events is all too familiar. Environmentalists warn that Madagascar could soon become a landscape of scrub growth and sand.

When land is cleared for grazing or farming in the Amazon, the amount of rainfall that runs off and returns to the sea increases, while that which is recycled inland to provide more rainfall is reduced dramatically. The forest begins to dry out, and at some point, the weakened rainforest becomes vulnerable to fire. As the Amazon rainforest weakens, it is approaching a tipping point beyond which it cannot be saved.

A similar situation may be developing in Africa, where deforestation and land clearing are proceeding rapidly as firewood use mounts and as logging firms clear large tracts of virgin forests. As the trees disappear, rainfall runoff increases, depriving the land of the water pumped through trees and into the atmosphere. When the forests disappear, this rainfall declines and crop yields follow.

More and more countries are beginning to recognize the risks associated with deforestation. Among the countries that now have total or partial bans on logging in primary forests are China, New Zealand, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Viet Nam. Unfortunately, all too often a ban in one country simply shifts the deforestation to others or drives illegal logging.

Image credit: World Resources Institute at Flickr under a Creative Commons license