The twelve nations, now home to fewer than 13,000 elephants due to the combined effect of those dangers, signed the pact at a conference at the Nairobi-based UN Environment Programme (UNEP), it said.

"Urgent, wide-ranging action is needed because of the perilous state of many of the region's elephant populations," UNEP said in a statement released at the meeting of parties to the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS).

Under the agreement, Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Togo agreed to enact numerous cooperative measures to protect elephants, it said.

The steps include improving natural habitats, creating cross-border migratory paths, banning unsustainable logging and reducing farming, mining and hunting in national parks and other reserves, UNEP said.

Like their better known counterparts in eastern and southern Africa, west African elephants have been decimated by poaching and the ivory trade for centuries and their habitats engulfed by urbanization, deforestation and war.

Scientists estimate the current west African elephant population of between 5,000 and 13,000 is a mere seven percent of what it was in 1900.

Burkina Faso is home to the largest remaining population in the region, with an estimated 4,000 elephants. On the lower end of the ladder, experts speculate Sierra Leone may have as few as 300 elephants.

Although most of west Africa's remaining elephants live in protected areas, wildlife staff in much of the region are ill-trained, poorly paid and lack the means to enforce conservation laws already in place, it said.

The agreement aims to improve training, including provisions for university degrees in wildlife management, and acquire better field equipment in schemes kick-started with an intitial 60,000-dollar (51,000-euro) UNEP grant, it said.

It builds on efforts begun in 1998 by the IUCN-World Conservation Union to promote the protection of elephants and encourage environmentally friendly development projects that benefit largely impoverished human populations.

"This is not just a conservation agreement for elephants," said IUCN director-general Achim Steiner.

"By improving their habitats and conserving the region's ecosystems, this agreement can boost the fortunes and prospects for local people who rely on nature for their livelihoods," he said.

Experts hope the agreement will raise the profile of elephants in west Africa, which are overshadowed by bigger and better-promoted populations in east and south Africa, and improve tourism in the region.

"This will give local and poor people a real economic incentive to conserve [elephants] for current and future generations," said Lamine Sebogo of the IUCN.

But the Boston-based International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) suggests that west African forest elephants may not be as big of a draw as their sub-saharan savannah counterparts because they are harder to observe.

"Forest elephants live deep in the forests so they are not very easy to see," said IFAW spokesperson Elizabeth Wamba.

Overall, however, IFAW supported the signing of the memo of understanding and urged other African nations to implement similar strategies to conserve regional wildlife.

"This agreement is paving the way forward for west African elephant populations and other regions should look at implementing something similar to foster regional cooperation to preserve wildlife," Wamba said.

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