A multistakeholder exercise to identify research and conservation priorities for Asian elephants in China

China is home to a small but expanding population of wild Asian elephants (Elephas maximus). Both research interest and conservation efforts have increased in recent years, but these have been fragmented. Here we present the results from a collaborative, multi-sectorial, multi-stakeholder exercise to identify priorities for Chinese elephant research and conservation. We first compiled a comprehensive list of issues, categorized under nine research and nine conservation themes, through an on-line survey of stakeholders. These issues were subsequently consolidated, timelined (as short-, mid-, or long-term issues), and ranked by their perceived priority in a two-day workshop attended by 44 people representing 28 organizations. The initial list of 656 issues (337 research and 319 conservation) was consolidated into a list of 251 (121 research and 130 conservation) issues. After priority ranking, we retained the top-three issues within each theme (making a total of 55 priority issues, due to a tie), which are then discussed in detail in this paper. Most (87%, n = 55) priority issues were classified as short-term, suggesting that the exercise might have succeeded in identifying the current priorities, but not emerging issues that might require attention in future. Some issues appeared in various forms in different themes. Among research questions, participants highlighted the importance of understanding the carrying capacity of the current elephant range habitats, elephant movement patterns and expected range changes, the drivers of human-elephant conflict (HEC), improvements to the current HEC financial compensation mechanism, and ways of engaging local communities in HEC mitigation. Regarding elephant conservation, recurrent issues included effectively engaging communities, improving HEC early-warning systems and financial compensation mechanisms, establishing a new national park within elephant range, and creating mechanisms for communication and collaboration among elephant research and conservation stakeholders in China. Our exercise was effective in engaging experts from a diversity of different sectors and organizations in discussions about Asian elephants in China, and generated a list of priorities that can help guide elephant research and conservation efforts.