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Our Partner for Asian elephant conservation: Future for Elephants

Greta Liscio

Why it's important to protect the Asian Elephant


Future for Elephants is a German non-profit with the goal of protecting the elephant species worldwide.

Future for elephants logo

They collaborate with several elephant conservation projects around the world. Among these the Elephant Nature Park in Thailand and its Save Elephant Foundation, which is one of the projects that Natriarch supports.


In the summer 2024 I was travelling in South East Asia to volunteer in conservation projects incognito, with the aim of selecting future Natriarch's partners. I decided to volunteer in an elephant sanctuary in Chiang Mai, the ENP. What I found there exceeded any expectation. The foundation and projects run by Lek Chailert, the incredible woman behind ENP and SEF, are an example of the holistic approach to conservation. Her goal is not only to solve the problem of elephant domestication in Thailand and across South East Asia, but her projects represent also a consistent conservation effort. The elephant Nature Park is a safe haven for old elephants who have worked their entire lives in different industries, from timber, to tourism. A lot of the animals have tragic stories behind them, it is heart-breaking to hear what they all went through.


asian elephants at elephant nature park in Thailand
Elephant Nature Park - Blind elephants with their carer

However, witnessing their present life at the sanctuary gives one hope and a sense of wholeness. Elephants are incredibly intelligent, emotional creatures, with complex social dynamics. They are wild and deserve to stay that way. But once the damage is done, places like ENP are the only fair option for them.


asian elephants at ENP eating sugar cane
Elephant Nature Park - Elephants having a sugar cane snack

I left ENP utterly mind-blown by Lek Chailert and what she's doing. She created a place for elephants to be free from abuse, but she's also convincing elephant owners across different countries in South East Asia to turn their businesses into wildlife areas and parks for tourists.


ENP staff preparing food for the elephants
Elephant Nature Park - staff preparing snacks

Furthermore, she has multiple rewilding projects across Thailand, Cambodgia and Laos. Ultimately, she's contributing to the creation of buffer zones for wild asian elephants to roam by purchasing land and decrease habitat fragmentation.



Why is it bad to use elephants in tourism or industry?


Elephants are wild creatures. They live in social groups in a matriarchal society. That means then, once their male offspring have reached puberty, they leave the group and roam as solitary animals. Whilst the females live together and support each other in the upbringing of the offspring. Elephants have displayed intelligent behaviour, and emotional capability. They mourn the dead, and have been witnessed burying their dead babies. They are playful, caring creatures who always protect each other. In order to domesticate a wild elephant, it requires the kidnapping of the babies. Babies or juveniles can be trained to be obedient through horrible practices which involve weeks of torture. After the trainers have 'broken' the wild spirit of the elephant they are ready to be used in industry or tourism. When elephants are forced to work, they are kept in solitude and rarely interact with other elephants, which is against their social nature.


Many rescued elephants at ENP have mental illnesses, developed through years of solitude. In addition, domesticated elephants are forced into breeding, which causes often casualties. In nature, elephant mate under particular circumstances and are free to chose their mate, but in captivity that is not the case. Females are bonded and exposed to a bull in musth, which is very aggressive, and sometimes kills them in the process. If this wouldn't already be enough of a reason to stop using elephants in tourism or any other industry, it turns out that elephants can not be fully controlled. Frequently, during religious festivities, the trainers loose control of the animals and this has caused human casualties throughout Asia in more than one occasion. Hence, next time you fly to Asia, think twice before riding an elephant. Behind a funny experience there is a lot of suffering and injustice.



Asian elephants are considered endangered by the UN IUCN Red List


Estimates count less than 50.000 individuals remaining in the wild. And their population is in constant decrease due to habitat loss or fragmentation, poaching or human-wildlife conflict. South-East Asia urbanisation process is still expanding and protected areas are lacking. Moreover, protected areas don't involve vital corridors for elephants to roam freely. Elephants are migrating animals, they roam long distances to find food and water. Without protection and conservation a future without Asian elephants is very possible.



If have a business and you care about conservation and sustainable development you can make your contribution by simply working with Natriarch! Find out more about our services on our performance marketing page.





Bibliography


Santiapillai, C., 1997. The Asian elephant conservation: A global strategy. Gajah, 18, pp.21-39.


Fernando, P., Wikramanayake, E.D., Weerakoon, D., Janaka, H.K., Gunawardena, M., Jayasinghe, L.K.A., Nishantha, H.G. and Pastorini, J., 2006. The future of Asian elephant conservation: Setting sights beyond protected area boundaries. Conservation biology in Asia, pp.252-260.


De, R., Sharma, R., Davidar, P., Arumugam, N., Sedhupathy, A., Puyravaud, J.P., Selvan, K.M., Rahim, P.A., Udayraj, S., Parida, J. and Digal, D.K., 2021. Pan-India population genetics signifies the importance of habitat connectivity for wild Asian elephant conservation. Global Ecology and Conservation, 32, p.e01888.


Li, L.L., Wang, Q.Y., Yang, H.P., Tao, Y.X., Wang, L.X., Yang, Z.B., Campos-Arceiz, A. and Quan, R.C., 2023. Mobile animals and immobile protected areas: improving the coverage of nature reserves for Asian elephant conservation in China. Oryx, 57(4), pp.532-539.


Hankinson, E. and Nijman, V., 2020, February. Asian Elephants: 15 years of research and conservation. In Journal of Physics: Conference Series (Vol. 1460, No. 1, p. 012055). IOP Publishing.


Xu, H., Jiang, L. and Liu, Y., 2024. Mapping the potential distribution of Asian elephants: Implications for conservation and human–elephant conflict mitigation in South and Southeast Asia. Ecological Informatics, 80, p.102518.


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