Manchester City's Yaya Toure joins UN campaign against elephant poaching

Manchester City midfielder Yaya Toure has been named as a goodwill ambassador by the United Nations Environment Programme as he joins a campaign to save elephants.

The Ivory Coast international has joined the movement in a bid to stop the slaughter of the animal, 800 of which remain in the midfielder's country.

"Poaching threatens the very existence of the African elephant and if we do not act now, we could be looking at a future in which this iconic species is wiped out," Toure said in a press conference in Nairobi, Kenya.

Elephant tusks are said to be used to make ornaments and rhino horns for traditional medicine, but ivory trade is banned under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.