The Kingdom of Thailand – a country that has long revered the elephant for its royal and religious significance – is home to some 4,000 of the fewer than 50,000 Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) still surviving.

Compared to the relatively enduring population of African elephants (currently estimated to number about 500,000), the rapidly dwindling Asian population was a major cause of concern. In 1975, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) banned the commercial trade in Asian elephants. Thailand ratified the convention in 1983, and has been subject to its provisions ever since. In 1986, the Asian elephant was added to the World Conservation Union (IUCN) list of endangered species.

In the case of African elephants, ivory poaching contributed most to the drastic population decline. Asian elephants, on the other hand, have been much more affected by the rapid loss of habitat. In 1950, some 60 per cent of Thailand was covered with forest; today it is less than 15 per cent, and declining. Although proper data is lacking in Thailand, the wild population is estimated at between 1,000 and 1,500.

The latest government statistics (2003) for elephants living in captivity put the current population at 2,874, which is up from a low of 2,118 in 1998. However, this is still significantly down on the 4,874 domesticated elephants recorded in 1980.

Due to various protection efforts over the past two decades, many conservationists are confident the Asian elephant has a long future in Thailand – even if in smaller numbers.

“My feeling is the population of elephants has stabilized,” says Richard Lair, an expert on Asian elephants who has lived in Thailand more than 25 years and works with the government to establish what has become a role model in eco-tourism and conservation. The Thai Elephant Conservation Center (TECC) in Lampang in Northern Thailand is home to 48 elephants and cares for another 70 elsewhere, including rehabilitation areas.

Not all elephant activists in the country are as optimistic. Soraida Salwala, secretary general of the Friends of the Asian Elephant, finds the regeneration rate alarmingly low. She estimates females in captivity give birth to only one calf in their lifetime rather than the more typical eight for wild females.

Keeping all elephants in "the wild" would be the most ideal situation. But given the reality of expanding human settlements, managed contact has become inevitable and necessary for their protection. Tourism has played a key role in conservation efforts and, because of the enormous affection humans feel for elephants, tourists will continue to influence their future.

Conservation Efforts for Domesticated Elephants
A variety of agencies and organizations are determined to protect the future of Asian elephants in Thailand.

Several conservation groups have set up hospital facilities to nurse injured elephants and care for abandoned ones. Both the TECC and Friends of the Asian Elephant have hospital facilities that provide assistance to other elephant foundations, train veterinarians in elephant care and run mobile clinics. The TECC is now one of nine royally initiated projects that the Thai government promotes in overseas tourism and travel marts/trade shows.

To care for the very young and very old, sick and injured elephants, as well as overly aggressive bulls no longer capable of co-existing with human communities, and to allow them a life akin to their wild relatives, conservationists have established sanctuaries that provide natural habitat refuges. Land has been rehabilitated and planted with crops to feed the elephants and their mahouts.

The following highlights conservation efforts by some of the many groups operating in Thailand:

		The Thai Elephant Conservation Center (TECC) under Royal Patronage is the official “custodian” of Thai elephant conservation efforts. The TECC is the primary consulting agency to the government and has played a key role in formulating new much-needed legislation, currently in draft form and waiting for consideration and approval. The TECC also cares for several of the King’s famous eleven white elephants on its premises. To maintain the ban on elephants on city streets, the TECC manages a government rescue team that has authority to confiscate elephants found in many of the country’s major urban centres. The development of these elephant sanctuaries is a vital part of the solution to elephants and mahouts wandering city streets begging for food and donations.     Image © TECC In efforts to raise funds, TECC accepts donations and offers an elephant adoption scheme. The TECC also offers performances and homestay lodgings with locals cooking for tourists who come to learn to be a mahout for a few days. The performances are kept to three a day and include elephants demonstrating their logging techniques. A few of the elephants at the TECC have demonstrated an artistic or musical inclination and those interested have been encouraged to perform. They paint abstract works of art and play musical instruments, such as the Thai xylophone (ranad), gongs and other percussion instruments, forming what is probably the world’s first elephant orchestra. Its third CD is due for release soon. Conservationists such as Lair argue that the elephants who paint or play music at the TECC “wouldn’t do it if they didn’t enjoy it.”
		Image © Elephant Nature Foundation Elephant Nature Foundation The Elephant Nature Foundation works to increase public awareness about the plight of the endangered Asian elephant, educate locals on the humane treatment of their elephants and provide emergency medical care as well as sanctuary for rescued elephants at its nature park in northern Thailand.
		The Boon Lott’s Elephant Sanctuary (BLES) The Boon Lott’s Elephant Sanctuary (BLES) offers a home to elephants without requiring them to work or perform, especially old and mistreated ones. The founder, Katherine Connor hopes the natural, secure surroundings will encourage easier breeding. The sanctuary is building an on-site hospital with a mobile clinic and offering training opportunities to veterinary students.
		The Treasure Our Elephants Foundation The Treasure Our Elephants Foundation has been actively involved in the drafting of legislation to ensure the proper care and welfare of elephants. The foundation also maintains a group of travelling volunteer veterinarians from the public and private sectors. The foundation pays for the cost of needed medical supplies for elephants along with the out-of-pocket expenses of its volunteers, who visit elephants in their local areas to check on their health and well-being, treat injured and sick elephants and provide advice and information to owners. The foundation maintains a hotline for reports of elephants that are injured, ill, mistreated or need some other assistance.
		Image © Friends of the Asian Elephant Friends of the Asian Elephant Friends of the Asian Elephant actively support legislative efforts being undertaken to protect elephants. The organization also focuses their efforts on stopping the illegal cross-border trade in elephants, especially calves, into Thailand, vigorously opposes the export of elephants and lobbies the government to register all new-born elephants to facilitate the proper identification of those born in captivity. FAE also operates a hospital facility as well as mobile clinic.

		Image © Four Seasons Tented Camp Golden Triangle The Anantara Golden Triangle and the Four Seasons Tented Camp Golden Triangle The Anantara Golden Triangle and the Four Seasons Tented Camp Golden Triangle resorts work with the TECC in providing short mahout-training courses and trekking trips as a way to attract tourists while providing for the extended care of elephants that might otherwise end up street begging. The Anantara runs a project to take elephants off the city streets by offering their owners accommodation and food for the elephant and a monthly “rental” fee as a kind of livelihood income. Owners can live on the 160-acre forest with their wives and children. The Four Seasons Elephant Camp takes in rescued baby elephants. John Roberts, the Anantara project director, says he aims to create an environment that will be of value to elephants in general rather than a few individuals.
		Surin Elephant Camp in Surin province, which is also home to the annual November elephant round-up and the Kui or Suai tribes, which are famous as elephant herders from ancient times. Other attractions there include the Elephant Study Centre and Museum.
		Ban Ta Klang, also in Surin, formerly the Thai Airways International Elephant Village
		Mae Sa Elephant Camp and Chiang Dao Elephant Camp in Chiang Mai province
		Mae Kok Elephant Camp in Chiang Rai province
		Thaithong Elephant Camp in Pattaya
		Camps in Ayutthaya, Kanchanaburi and Sukhothai

Fund Raising
Most conservation groups rely on public donations. The Thai public is known to be generous with donations to support the country’s elephants, especially for the purchase of medicines and facilities for care.

Some innovative efforts to raise funds for further elephant protection and care include the sales of books, greetings cards, T-shirts, key rings and other elephant-themed memorabilia, as well as the auctioning of elephant images.

Species Propagation
The TECC veterinarians, in collaboration with Chiang Mai University veterinarians, have successfully impregnated an elephant through artificial insemination; she gave birth to a 100-kilogram male baby elephant on 7 March 2007. While the veterinarians are excited by the prospects of helping the elephants increase their birth rates, they also acknowledge that it is a difficult and arduous process for the females.

Conservation Efforts for Wild Elephants
The biggest wild populations are found in the Thung Yai and Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuaries and the Khao Yai and Kaeng Krachan National Parks.

Despite the protected wildlife areas, the expansion of human settlements (and the corresponding loss of forest land to logging and agriculture) is squeezing wild elephants into ‘green islands’. In time, the isolated populations will be at risk of inbreeding if there are no connecting corridors between those islands.

A few organizations are tackling the problem of human-elephant conflict in Thailand.

• Elephant Conservation Network (ECN)
  Troubled by the growing threat of crop-raiding to people and elephants alike, the Elephant Conservation Network (ECN), a community-based conservation initiative, was set up in Kanchanaburi in 1998 to seek a collaborative long-term solution based on a thorough understanding of the problem. Working with local people and forest rangers, the small team of researchers has been studying the ways in which elephants and people make use of the forest in the Salakpra and Tham Thanlod protected areas at different times of the year. Outside the forest, the ECN team is also recording every crop-raiding incident while mapping land use around the forest and conducting a socio-economic survey.
  
  The ECN team includes fifteen local villagers who volunteer to monitor the crop raiding in their area. “Our aim is to collaborate – with villagers, with protected-area personnel, with local leaders – to find sustainable solutions. Ultimately, nothing will work unless we all work together,” explains Belinda Stewart-Cox, a British researcher who started ECN with Jittin Ritthirat, a former journalist. They aim to develop a raft of integrated projects that will help restore and protect the forest area for local people and elephants. If elephants have enough natural food year round within the protected areas, they will raid crops less frequently.
  
  
• World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)
  The international conservation organization began a project in 2005 to step up efforts to resolve the increasing conflicts between humans and elephants in Kui Buri National Park in Prachuap Khiri Khan province, through better land management.
  
  
• Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)
  In its Kaeng Krachan Elephant Conservation Project that began in 2001, the Wildlife Conservation Society is working with local and national government officials to map water sources and assess the elephant population and human-elephant conflicts around the park. In meetings with farmers, they are discussing ways of reducing such conflicts, such as stringing ropes covered with chili-laced grease around the perimeter of fields.

To read more or contact the elephant organizations, networks, foundations and camps in Thailand:

NORTHERN THAILAND:
The National Elephant Institute & Thai Elephant Conservation Center, Forest Industry Organization
www.thailandelephant.org

Elephant Nature Foundation
www.elephantnaturefoundation.org
www.elephantkingdom.com

Treasure Our Elephants-
Foundation for the Conservation of Northern Elephants
www.treasurethaielephants.org

Asian Elephant Foundation of Thailand
www.aeft.org

Friends of the Asian Elephant
www.elephants-soraida.com

Elephant Help Project
www.elephanthelp.org

Boon Lott’s Elephant Sanctuary, or BLES
www.blesele.com

Anantara Golden Triangle
www.slh.com/thailand/chiang_saen/photographs1_chiana.html

Four Seasons Tented Camp Golden Triangle
www.fourseasons.com/goldentriangle

NORTHEASTERN THAILAND:
Elephant Home-coming Project
Ban Ta Klang elephant village, Surin
www.geocities.com/RainForest/7153/surin_1.htm

CENTRAL/WESTERN THAILAND:
Elephant Conservation Network

Kuiburi National Park
World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)
www.panda.org/about_wwf/where_we_work/asia_pacific/where/thailand/index.cfm

Kaeng Krachan Elephant Conservation Project
Wildlife Conservation Society
www.wcs.org/international/Asia/thailand/thailandelephants

OVERALL
Elephant Reintroduction Foundation
www.elephantreintroduction.org