African and Asian states, including China, yesterday struck a deal at the Elephant Summit being held in Gaborone, Botswana, on the tackling of the illegal ivory trade .

The "urgent measures to halt the illegal trade and secure elephant populations across Africa" were agreed on by Gabon, Kenya, Zambia, China and Thailand.

Details of the agreement had not yet been divulged at the time of going to press.

On Monday, a report released at the opening of the summit showed that as many as 20% of Africa's elephants could be killed in the next 10 years if illegal poaching continued at the current rate.

About 22000 elephants were illegally killed across Africa in 2012, lower than the 25000 elephants poached the previous year, according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species or Cites.

The killings took place at 42 sites across 27 African countries, according to the report.

"With an estimated 22000 African elephants illegally killed in 2012, we continue to face a critical situation. Current elephant poaching in Africa remains far too high, and could soon lead to local extinctions if the present killing rates continue. The situation is particularly acute in Central Africa, where the estimated poaching rate is twice the continental average," said Cites secretary-general John E Scanlon.

In September cyanide was used to kill more than 300 elephants in Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park in the "worst single massacre in Southern Africa in 25 years", according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Although elephants in Central Africa are bearing the brunt of the poaching, high poaching levels in all sub-regions mean that even the large elephant populations in southern and eastern Africa are at risk, unless the trend is reversed.