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LONDON: London is about to be invaded by Asian elephants.
260 life size sculptors will be released onto the streets of the British capital in early May, in what will be the country's largest public art display.
The sculptures, which have been decorated by artists, fashion designers, as well as community groups and schools, carry an important message.
The Elephant Parade hopes to raise awareness of the plight of the endangered Asian elephant.
Human encroachment into their habitat and the blocking of traditional migratory routes have caused the elephant population to plummet.
It is hoped the sculptures will raise funds for much needed conservation projects to protect the Asian elephant.
In the last one hundred years, the population has plummeted from around a quarter of a million to 25,000 to 35,000.
70 per cent of these losses were in the past 10 years.
"In India alone, an elephant is killed everyday - a person is killed and a person kills an elephant, so you've really got a war on," said Mark Shand of the Elephant Family.
"So what we're doing is... elephants have had these migratories routes, basically like islands connecting parks between each other, they've got no where to move and people have encroached on them.
"So we negotiate with the people to move from the land. So what we do, we buy the land, build them houses, off the corridors and give them exactly the same amount of arable land back and they're very glad to be doing this."
Meanwhile the London elephants will appear around the capital overnight and their locations are currently being finalised.
One of the most iconic elephants is the black cab elephant.
All sculptures have been made and transported in the most environmentally friendly way possible, and one of the elephants even lights up with the help of nature.
"They're trying to be ecological in the way they're doing things from the way it's made to the way they're transporting it so when I thought about doing a taxi the light element was really interesting," said artist and designer Ben Shine.
"So, being outside, solar power is the way that I've done it. So the plinth, when it's in situ, will have solar power and the light will come on and off during the day. So people will be a little confused when they're looking to hail a cab."
Cloudia the cloud elephant is the only one that will move around the city, gathering signatures to call for better protection of the Asian elephant through government action.
"We're going to raise about one million pounds from selling these elephants but that's nothing against the target in the field," said Ruth Powys, director of the Elephant Family.
"The target in the field is 50 million.... the only way we're even going to get close to that is collecting signatures from the public, which we can then go and lobby governments with."
The organisers are planning to take the concept of Elephant Parade to other cities after London.
New York and Dehli are among those being considered, as they want the campaign to help the Asian elephant to go global.
- CNA/yb
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