In the Steps of Giants: Saving Elephants in Southeast Asia

Saengduean Lek Chailert, founder of Save Elephant Foundation

I come from very humble beginnings in the remote mountains of northern Thailand. My grandfather was a shaman, or traditional healer, who helped the people of our community. Sometimes villagers would bring sick or injured animals to him for care, and he allowed me to participate in their treatment. In return for saving the life of a young man, he was given an elephant named Tong Kam, meaning Golden One.

My youth was spent in the shadow of this giant. A special friendship developed and it was then that my intrigue and love for elephants began. As a young woman, I became more aware of elephants’ working conditions and of their suffering. I would hear their cries from the deep forest, and I vowed to change their lives for the better. With the knowledge that they were becoming endangered, I began raising public awareness of their situation and providing medical aid to elephants in remote villages who had injuries and wounds.

In the 1990s I began rescuing injured, neglected, and elderly elephants and in 2003 was able to establish a permanent homeland for them in the picturesque Mae Taeng valley near Chiang Mai. In an industry steeped in tradition, advocating for positive change in the ways that domestic and wild Asian elephants are treated has not been an easy battle.

The survival of both wild and captive elephants is dangerously compromised. There are 3,500 working elephants in Thailand. The beautiful giant deserves better than history affords. Lives stifled by merciless restraint, our efforts to rescue are a signpost for others to imitate. We work to create a space for elephants free from fear and harm, with access to natural requirements and a gently managed opportunity for friendship with their own kind.

At Elephant Nature Park, we have eighty-four elephants who have been rescued from logging and the tourism industry (riding camps, elephant shows, and street begging). Many of our elephants can be described as old, sick, lame, blind, or somehow compromised. Hence, we have a full-time veterinary team (nine vets on staff) to provide care and rehabilitation. Food and freedom play no small role in healing. A healthy diet is important for recovery. Tons of food are delivered daily to satisfy the requirements of our herd. As we deplore the chain, all elephants have a fetter-free night shelter with water access and enrichments. An ongoing necessity is the purchase of additional lands each year to expand both space to roam and the potential to rescue others from their life of hardship.

Save Elephant Foundation promotes responsible, ethical, and sustainable forms of ecotourism. We sponsor people from around Asia, including Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Laos, India, and Indonesia, to visit our project, in order to understand our compassionate approach to elephant husbandry. Our Saddle Off program was born of a desire to provide more opportunities for tourists to encounter elephants responsibly. We mentor elephant camps to transition to an ethical model, which allows their elephants to enjoy natural behaviors such as walking, swimming, playing with each other, and reveling in mud. Our support to these projects includes microfinancing and building chain-free shelters. There are currently over forty trekking camps that have transitioned by taking the saddles off their elephants and offering visitors the opportunity to observe elephants behaving naturally and in many cases volunteer with them. Our work in Thailand is quite broad. We also have developing rescue operations in Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar.

Our rescue work is not limited to elephants. Wherever there is need, we try to help. Many animals pass through our gates injured or abandoned, neglected or abused, and others bound for the slaughterhouse. Akin to Noah’s ark, we have dogs, cats, horses, water buffalo, cows, goats, pigs, monkeys, bears, sheep, chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits, birds, and other animals. Our dog shelter fluctuates at five hundred residents, as does our cat community, and our adoption program has created a global pack that shares happy pictures with us from their new forever homes. Our fully equipped mobile clinic is always ready to provide free treatment to any animal regionally in need, and our small-animal clinic offers free treatment, sterilization, and vaccination services, helping to control overpopulation.

We offer two weekly volunteer programs at Elephant Nature Park, one with elephants and the other with our dogs. Elephant volunteers gain insight into the conservation work of Save Elephant Foundation, while getting their hands dirty in cleanup, food preparation and delivery, shelter enrichment, and other community activities. Volunteers play an important role as ambassadors for elephants by educating travelers about the harm and exploitation behind traditional elephant tourism and encouraging people to visit them at a reputable sanctuary, instead of riding them on a jungle trek. Dog volunteers learn about our shelter history and the dogs under our care, while being responsible for walking, feeding, cleaning, and socializing with dogs.

Supporting the local community is of great importance to Save Elephant Foundation. We focus on empowering Thai women from the nearby villages, providing them with work and an opportunity to become economically independent. Various jobs include animal caretakers, housemaids, gardeners, cooks and kitchen staff, guides, and more. We provide a space for local women to do Thai massage (100 percent of the funds go to them), and women also perform traditional Thai dance for our guests and volunteers. Older women from the community are invited to a welcoming ceremony for our volunteers, providing a blessing on their activity. Our own ENP Coffee uses farming partners who empower women as part of a self-sustaining community initiative, which revives the economy in local villages and supports Thailand’s reforestation efforts. We also hire villagers to do community work, depending on the need, whether building small schools in remote rural areas, or public washrooms and meeting place facilities. We provide scholarships to students from hill tribe communities, and study supplies for local schools. We support local farmers by consistently purchasing elephant food, as well as food for our guests and volunteers.

Environmental Protection is a very important tenet of Save Elephant Foundation. Elephants and other wildlife have lost their native home due to human encroachment and activity. We work to preserve and protect forests by planting saplings in the rainy season, and we tie saffron sashes around trees in the dry season which helps to protect the forest from being cut down. We also provide education and funds to help manage the local environment more responsibly, including waste management, water usage, and forest fire controls. We protect the forests by promoting farming with ecologically sound methods of shade-grown crops.

I am asked why I rescue the old elephant. The images of suffering should speak for themselves, yet my answer is quite simple. It is about respect. To protect them is a high calling. By doing so, we also protect and strengthen our own hearts. The act of rescuing in many ways rescues ourselves, to preserve a fragile humanity. To see elephants work hard for decades, chained to the human yoke, disconnected from kinship, and finally falling down is a travesty in need of redress. All captive elephants are allotted this fate, while the wild pass before our eyes in the fury of greed and violence. We rescue in order to honor them, to offer a moment of respect in a tragic life. They are too old to carry on. We provide them a chance to live with a measure of freedom and dignity in the time they have left. We want them to have some happiness, to know rest and a gentle hand, and to encounter their own kind with deep meaning. They should not die during work, or shackled, or with torment and abuse hovering above their head.

The rescue of a solitary animal does not solve the overwhelming problems of the elephant and their survival. Those answers await our becoming a more responsible and self-aware species, who regard duty and the care of others as paramount to our own survival. Rescue is but a signpost bringing us back to ourselves. It also means everything to the one being rescued. Our direction is plain; our only agenda to foster awareness of the suffering giants, to provide love and care for them as best as we are able, and to invite others to join us in this march for their freedom.

It is important to dream, and best with eyes wide open. Without a vision, we waste away. To dream is to hope. To hope is to challenge; to challenge is to struggle, and then to achieve. Always follow the first steps to do what is necessary, and more opportunities will present themselves. What seems impossible at first in time becomes inevitable. The elephant has been driven to the edges of life. We must do all that we can to improve this remarkable creature’s chances of survival.