The “Conservation of the Malian Elephant” project addresses problems within the Gourma region that include illegal wildlife trade, natural resources management and human-elephant conflicts. Located in Mid-Northeast Mali, the Gourma is one of the country's four natural regions of highest biodiversity and home to endangered Gourma elephants. Environmental accounting for 2% of all West African elephants, these animals are threatened by the substantial surge in poaching after 2012 as well as other anthropogenic factors as unsustainable water consumption, overgrazing, deforestation, and interruption of migration routes. The project objective is to protect Mali's elephants in key sites and enhance the livelihoods of the local communities that live along the migration route to reduce human-elephant conflict. The objective will be achieved via implementation of four components: (1) Component 1. Strengthening the legislative framework and national capacity to address wildlife crime; (2) Protecting Gourma elephants from poaching and securing seasonal migration routes and key habitat; (3) Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) in the Gourma elephant habitat; and (4) Gender Mainstreaming, Knowledge Management and M&E. This project forms part of the GEF Programmatic Approach to Prevent the Extinction of Known Threatened Species, and falls under the GEF Programme Global Partnership on Wildlife Conservation and Crime Prevention for Sustainable Development (9071). Under this programmatic framework, with the coordination through the programme steering committee, coordinated knowledge management and collaboration of the individual projects will be assured.