NAIROBI, Dec. 4 -- An African wildlife charity has announced 10 million U.S. dollars Urgent Response Fund to stop the killing of wildlife in the continent.

The African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) said Thursday the funds will also be used stop the trafficking of wildlife parts abroad and stop the demand for ivory and rhino horn products.

"This Urgent Response Fund supports every targeted projects that are protecting priority populations of elephants, rhinos and other wildlife," AWF CEO Patrick Bergin said in a statement issued in Nairobi, adding the charity commits 10 million dollars over three years -- the same amount pledged initially by the U.S. and China, two of the world's largest economies.

Bergin said the money will fund efforts to tackle different parts of the illegal wildlife trade supply chain, from stopping poachers and traffickers to raising awareness in Asia in an effort to drive down demand for wildlife products such as ivory and rhino horn.

The Fund comes as tens of thousands of African elephants and a record number of Africa's rhinos are killed by poachers each year.

"To stop this crisis once and for all, we must inject resources quickly and deftly into efforts that stop poachers and traffickers in their tracks," said Bergin.

He said while the funds committed by governments to tackle the illegal wildlife trade are, in some cases, being held up by red tape and bureaucracy, AWF emergency funding faces no such obstacles.

In the 1970s, Africa was home to more than 1.3 million elephants. Today, as few as 419,000 may remain. According to AWF, as many as 35,000 elephants are killed by poachers each year to feed the ivory black market.

The South African government recently reported a record 1,020 rhinos have been poached in the country since the beginning of 2014, surpassing the 1,004 rhinos killed in all of 2013.

"We have been working for years to secure large, intact spaces for wildlife so it will survive and thrive in a fully modernized and economically vibrant Africa, but if we don't address these urgent threats to elephants, rhinos and other wildlife, now there won't be any wildlife left to fill those spaces," Bergin said.

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