- Elefantasia
Infobox Non-profit
Non-profit_name = ElefantAsia
Non-profit_
vector_
Non-profit_type =Non-profit Organisation
founded_date =September 2001 Paris ,France
founder = Sebastien Duffillot
Gilles Maurer
location_city =
location_country =
location =Paris, France
andVientiane, Laos
area_served =Xaignabouli Province
Laos
origins =
key_people = Sebastien Duffillot
Gilles Maurer
focus =Asian elephant conservation
method = Veterinary Care, Breeding Programs, Environmental Education, Ecotourism
revenue = $150,000USD/year
num_volunteers = Approx. 10
owner =
Non-profit_slogan =
homepage = [http://www.elefantasia.org/ www.elefantasia.org]
dissolved =
footnotes =ElefantAsia is a non-profit organisation dedicated towards the protection of the
Asian elephant , "Elephas maximus". This organisation operates in Laos PDR (Laos ) where today there are only 1500Asian elephants remaining [Norachack, B 2002, 'The care and management of domesticated Asian elephants in Lao PDR', in Baker I & Kashio, M (eds), Giants On Our Hands: Proceedings of the International Workshop on the domesticated Asian elephant,FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok, pp 172-180.] , 560 of these domesticated and working with theirmahouts .Created by Sebastien Duffillot and Gilles Maurer, ElefantAsia has been working in Laos, the
Land of a Million Elephants since 2001. Much of their organisation’s work is conducted in the Sayaboury, orXaignabouli Province ofLaos , which is home to an approximate 75% of the country’s domesticated elephant population.What they do
If economic pressures and changing ways of life continue unchanged, the
Asian elephant and its habitat will disappear fromLaos within only a number of years. This is because information collation, surveying and national census have proved ineffective at providing accurate data on wild and domestic elephant populations [Norachack, B 2002, 'The care and management of domesticated Asian elephants in Lao PDR', in Baker I & Kashio, M (eds), "Giants On Our Hands: Proceedings of the International Workshop on the domesticated Asian elephant,"FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok, pp 172-180.] . [http://www.elefantasia.org ElefantAsia] is attempting to reverse this trend by concentrating conservation efforts in three main areas:- veterinary, educational and economical support [ElefantAsia 2008, "Fields of Action", 22 April 2008, http://www.elefantasia.org/spip.php?article52&lang=en] . [http://www.elefantasia.org ElefantAsia] has developed a veterinary care unit and carries out public awareness campaigns and environmental education withinLaos .Projects in Laos
The Elephant Festival
In cooperation with the National Tourism Authority, [http://www.elefantasia.org ElefantAsia] organised the [http://www.elefantasia.org/spip.php?article31&lang=en Elephant Festival] each year since 2007.The first [http://www.elefantasia.org/spip.php?article31&lang=en Elephant Festival] was held in the
Xaignabouli Province and attracted more than 10,000 people in celebration of this endangered national treasure. In 2008 over 50,000 people crowded to attend the festival [Lao National Tourism Authority, 2008, Vientiane, Lao PDR] .Mobile Veterinary Unit
[http://www.elefantasia.org ElefantAsia] created the [http://www.elefantasia.org/spip.php?article9&lang=en Mobile Veterinary Unit] to provide ‘house calls’ to domesticated elephants working in remote areas. Operating in the
Xaignabouli province ofLaos , the [http://www.elefantasia.org/spip.php?article9&lang=en Mobile Veterinary Unit] is especially designed to dispense medical care to domesticated elephants [Elefantasia, 2008, "Mobile Veterinary Unit", http://www.elefantasia.org/spip.php?article9&lang=en] . ElefantAsia’s veterinary team visits logging sites, tourist camps and villages where elephants are employed to ensure they are receiving adequate healthcare. This is necessary as vaccinations are not available, medical treatment is rare and medication dosages are hardly ever adhered to [Norachack, B 2002, 'The care and management of domesticated Asian elephants in Lao PDR', in Baker I & Kashio, M (eds), "Giants On Our Hands: Proceedings of the International Workshop on the domesticated Asian elephant,"FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok, pp 172-180.] .Breeding Program
Today in
Laos the domesticated elephant population only has 2 births for every 10 deaths [Maurer, G 2008, "Breeding", 20 April 2008,http://www.elefantasia.org/spip.php?article50&lang=en] . The main cause for their decline is that they are rarely given the opportunity to reproduce. [http://www.elefantasia.org ElefantAsia] is implementing an incentive scheme for Laomahouts to voluntarily enter their elephants into a [http://www.elefantasia.org/spip.php?article50&lang=en reproductive breeding program] .The aim of [http://www.elefantasia.org/spip.php?article50&lang=en ElefantAsia’s breeding program] is to understanding the problems which discourage elephant owners from breeding their elephants, and finding alternative methods of income for
mahouts , elephant owners and their families.The domesticated elephant
Laos is home to an approximate 560 domesticatedAsian elephants . Most are engaged intimber harvesting operations and sadly contribute to the destruction of wild elephant habitat [Norachack, B 2002, 'The care and management of domesticated Asian elephants in Lao PDR', in Baker I & Kashio, M (eds), "Giants On Our Hands: Proceedings of the International Workshop on the domesticated Asian elephant,"FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok, pp 172-180.] . Yet these elephants are very valuable as they contribute to the national economy. A community of approximately 12,500 people directly depend on revenue generated by their work.Traditionally elephants from wild populations were captured and domesticated by skilled mahouts. Since capture from the wild has been banned by the government, the domesticated population has plummeted. With an increase in demand for elephants by thelogging industry , the animals are made to work at a furious pace. They are overworked and exhausted and therefore do not reproduce. As the age of the average domesticated elephant is rising, the self-perpetuation of the population is at jeopardy.Lao culture and the Asian elephant
Asian elephants have played an integral role in Lao cultural traditions and practises. They even hold a role in the ancient Bacci ceremony. According to traditionalLaos animist beliefs, the souls of a human being or animal normally occupy and vitalise specific areas of the body, but sometimes leave in times of strong emotion if tempted away by another being or an attractive place, or if captured by a malevolent spirit.Their absence is likely to cause danger, disease, or even death. To avoid such disaster, the souk khouan ritual (‘calling back the souls’) is organised and family, friends and neighbours invited. A celebrant appeals across various different worlds, calling for the absent souls to return without delay. To attract them, delicacies are placed on a round plate below a pyramid of flowers: eggs, chicken, rice, cakes and so on.After repeated calls, the souls are presumed to have returned to their host body and the celebrant ties white cotton threads to the patient’s wrists (or ears or legs in the case of elephants and buffalo, the only animals that this ritual is held for).The souk khouan rite is practised at times of disease, before departures, on arrivals, at marriages or professional promotions - in short, on any occasion likely to cause the souls to leave, and such events are numerous in
Laos .The mahout
The
mahout , or elephant keeper, is usually from a family line of mahouts that have amassed knowledge about these animals over the centuries.Mahouts possess the skills to control elephants and the knowledge of how to care for them on a daily basis. They also understand the habits of the wild animals; how to diagnose diseases; how to judge an individual elephant’s character, abilities, and relationships within a domesticated herd; what traumatic memories an elephant has and how they might affect its behaviour; how to make and use a harness, how to read tracks in the jungle, and a thousand other details.As the life expectancy of a man and an elephant are more or less equal, a youngmahout is usually chosen to train and raise a young animal. Ideally themahout will become very personally involved so that when a 15-year-old animal begins its career with amahout of the same age, several decades together await them. At forty years, when both reach their peak, their relationship will be extremely close.References
External links
* [http://www.elephantasia.org ElefantAsia]
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