Myanmar And The Elephant Project Made History By Signing Agreement For Elephant's Care

The Myanmar government and The Elephant Project signed a new historical agreement that aimed to relocate elephants into a safer place, avoiding human conflicts. It was the first time the country made a settlement for the care of this animal after the government-owned elephants were turned into an attraction and forced to perform in parks, following the ban of raw timber export in 2014.

"We have to take action now," Dane Waters, The Elephant Project founder, and president, said, per the South China Morning Post. The worsening case of deforestation in Myanmar destroys Elephants' habitat, so they are left wandering in villages in search of food. However, their search often leads to human-elephant conflicts that put both parties in danger.

Under the new agreement, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation and The Elephant Project's forest department will look for elephants that need to be moved. They also have to find a place where they can be safely relocated.

The Elephant Project will begin relocating 10 to 15 elephants to designated safe zones. However, the organization has bigger plans to build a sanctuary that will be home to Myanmar's many captive elephants. About 5,520 gentle giants live in captivity, which are almost two folds of the 3,000 estimated elephants that live in the wild.

"Our sanctuary plan is different to any that has ever been built before," Waters said. If it happens, it will be the biggest sanctuary ever constructed and may hold up to 3,000 elephants.

There will be different investment opportunities to fund the sanctuary project. It includes ethical elephant experiences and eco-friendly stays near the shelter. Waters assured that these things would be built with the elephants' welfare in mind. "Investment is going into protecting elephants," he said.

Freelance documentary photographer Ko Myo revealed elephants' story in Myanmar is a sad one. According to The Irrawaddy, he saw how people treated these animals when wild elephants passed by a town in Kyaukpadaung, Mandalay Region.

About six elephants from the Bago mountain range wandered into Kyaukpadaung Township. When villagers saw them, they came together and used tame elephants to force them to change their director. They went back to their habitat in the mountains, where elephant poaching usually happened.

If wild elephants continuously lost their habitat, there will be more conflict with humans and illegal trading. Hence, their species may disappear in Myanmar.

Ko Ye Min Thwin, Senior Communications Officer at WWF Myanmar, said Ko Myo's photos could help people to know more about elephants. "They are lovely and worth protecting; that we should value them and they don't deserve to be killed," he added. The photographer, on the other hand, disclosed that the only solution to solve this problem is to raise awareness and urge people to stop using products made of animals' part.

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Thai farmers’ joy: elephant damage now covered | #AsiaNewsNetwork

Bangkok (The Nation) - The Thai Cabinet has given its approval for farmers’ insurance to include intrusion by wild elephants that destroys their wet-season rice and maize.

A budget of Bt1.74 billion has been set aside in 2019 to protect farmers against damage to their rice and a further Bt212.8 million for damage to their maize grain, which the farmers grow commercially for livestock animals' feed industry, said Natthaporn Chatusripitak, spokesman for the deputy prime minister in charge of the economy.

The insurance schemes have also been set up to provide two tiers of coverage, tier 1 for a basic insurance policy and tier 2 for a more comprehensive option, which caters both to those willing to pay more for greater protection and to those taking out insurance for the first time.

Besides the usual cover for flood, drought, storms/typhoons, cold weather/frost, and fire, the insurance schemes would now also cover damages caused by wild elephants’ intrusion, Natthaporn said.

Wild elephants have been a menace for decades to people living near forest zones across Thailand, with numerous cases of invasion of farms and houses.

The issue of wild elephants intruding on to farmland has been severe in recent years.

Many cases have made headlines, including one incident in Nakhon Si Thammarat province last month, in which 7-8 wild elephants from Khao Luang forest destroyed orchards in tambon Kha Noi, Sichon district for several days, prompting villagers to call for help from the authorities. The villagers claimed two elephants from the same herd had also been responsible for damaging property three years ago.

In November last year, 40 wild elephants intruded 100 rai (16 hectares) of farmland in Loei’s Phu Luang district and destroyed rice, corn and tapioca, as well as a hut and water containers. The attack prompted Phu Luang Wildlife Sanctuary officials and villagers to set up 15-strong teams to work in shifts around the clock to drive away the elephants. They also advised people not to go out at night due to the risk of elephant attacks.

Earlier last year, wild elephants in Chanthaburi also destroyed 30 durian trees, resulting in damage estimated at Bt400,000.

Increasing concern over the severity of the problem saw the matter being escalated and prompted the government’s inclusion of such a threat in the crop insurance.

It also led to a collaboration between WWF-Thailand and the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP), resulting in officials fitting six specially made collars to six elephants at Khao Ang Rue Nai Wildlife Sanctuary in Chachoengsao province, since last December 22. The Sanctuary was designated a “red” area, indicating that it was a high human/elephant conflict zone and merited extra attention, in order to reduce the risk of human-elephant conflicts.

DNP deputy director-general Pinsak Suraswadi said during the project launch last month that the collars, which were imported from South Africa, would be used to study the movement of the pachyderms and help resolve the issue of them destroying crops.

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