Where d'you want me to put 'em?

By John Roberts 7 May 2008 04:10:00

It is in the quiet times that you get to thinking isn't it?  When the world's locked out and there isn't something to be done in half an hour three quarters of an hour's drive away, when you're driving Moskva back from town through the sunset, when it's half raining and you're lying in a hammock next to Bua Tong wondering if she could look any more like a caricature ele.

    When the guests aren't so many and all the work is either in Thai or takes skills you don't have, when you sit by the rising river where the babies are playing in the swamp, you look around and you think, what are we going to do with all these things in fifteen years time?

    There are many debates raging about the best ways to look after, make a living from/make a living for domestic eles, what is acceptable and what is not; sometimes it seems that if you stick five of us in a room and we might be able to agree on the colour of the ceiling as long as the light was switched on but that's about it.

    One thing I think we all, at least the conservation minded folks, sort of can shake hands on is that in an ideal world the eles would be free in the forest and not have to be constrained in any way or beholden to man.

    Whither the mahouts and their families?  Whither tradition?  Well we did say an ideal world and with a few honourable exclusions I think we also agree that the world isn't yet ideal - whether or not it is getting more or less ideal is a debate for another page.

    So if we're to de-habilitate our eles how would we go about it?  

    Some folks contend that just letting them go into Thailand's National Park system would solve the problem, money to support the ex-elephant owners could then be raised by charging guests to come and see them - I like this idea but how practical is it?  Pondering, I would say we are some way off this as a usable solution because...

    1, To the best of my knowledge no carrying capacity work has been done on the National Parks that don't currently, but could, hold elephants to let us know how eles per square km could be released - those parks that exist are far from prime ele habitat of swamp and grassland so my feeling is the capacity would be relatively low - is there enough National Park for 3,456 eles? (In 1990 Peter Jackson and the Asian Elephant Specialist Group estimated the capacity of Thailand's whole National Parks system, based on some rough but well informed assumptions, to be 1,500 at best).

    2, Several of those parks that do hold wild elephants are already facing Human Elephant Conflict problems, possibly due to illegal encroachment and inappropriate planting of fodder crops close to park boundaries, wild elephant populations artificially increased due to year round access to water etc.

    3, While there are eco- and otherwise tours operating in Khao Yai National Park, I know of no other park in Park in Thailand where ele spotting is considered easy and safe, almost by definition wild ele spotting in the mountains of South East Asia must be an exercise in limited numbers of tourists quietly tracking (or overlooking) elephants' favourite spots and waiting such as at the Baan Na project in Laos.  The wild elephants I have seen in Thailand have either been products of two days hard trekking or sheer blind luck - but none a bankable, paying experience, at least not one you'd want to rely on to keep three thousand families out of the poorhouse.

    The video isn't mine, but is of a wild ele in Khao Yai.



    So, that's all very depressing, John, easy to say it is too difficult and give up but what would your solution be?  Can't hold the status quo - where would you go from here? 

    I'm not saying it is not possible, just saying that we need to do some work before letting our eles go into the forest - a good start would be to do some carrying capacity work on those parks and other public lands that could but don't hold eles.

    Here at the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation, Anantara and Four Seasons we have recently been described as an halfway house for eles, well, what could that be the next step?

    How about luxury residences set in privately owned, or Government rented land, currently devoid of wild elephants, part of your room rate/timeshare pricing includes the care of one or two elephants, their mahouts and families that live on 'your' land.  If the land is large enough, the eles can roam where they please but are still looked after by the mahouts for additional feeding, insurance that they don't bother what neighbours we have (some girls wander by mistake), be in the ele-neighbourhood to make sure there are no nasty surprises.

    Some days you may never see your elephant but your spa sala, your restaurants overlook the wallows and salt-licks and you have the pleasure of knowing he/she is there and free to be an elephant.

    Any takers?

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