After animal labour in logging was banned, elephants no longer able to work became expensive burdens for their owners. Some found their way across the border to Burma, where elephant labour was still permitted. Others were put to work in legal trades such as street begging and tourist rides while others still were forced into work under cover of darkness in what became an illegal logging trade. Many were set free to roam alone, wandering through not only their former forest habitats but rural villages and towns. Freshly planted crops became tasty diversions for hungry elephants finding their way through a strange new landscape.
Even while still legal, logging work required long days and hard work for both man and animal. One elephant, given the name Lilly, was eight years old when she was bought and put to work carrying logs up and down the mountains around northern Thailand. She is now part of a herd owned by elephant campaigner Sangduen “Lek” Chailert, a Thai native and former tourism worker who was named Time Magazine’s Hero of Asia in 2005. Confronted by the “terrible abuse and neglect” of elephants, Lek started a sanctuary for sick, injured and badly treated elephants in need of a new home. When she found Lilly via an elephant hospital program known as the Jumbo Express, the animal had been tied to a tree and left to die. Her face and body were swollen and she was covered in wounds. Lek and her fellow volunteers suspected the animal had been poisoned. They later found Lilly had been fed methamphetamines by her owners in order to work faster. Lek bought the elephant from her owners and coaxed her back to health at the Elephant Nature Park in Thailand’s north. The healing process was long and the animal still bears scars, but Lilly has been luckier than some. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) estimates there are still around 1500 elephants working illegally in forests and logging in Thailand alone.
Fight for life
There are few winners when humans and elephants clash, often over basic resources such as food and land. Across Asia, numerous reports of elephants killing families and destroying flimsy huts have been published by the media in the last two decades. In December 2009, Indian media reported 32 human deaths and 23 elephant deaths over three years in the single district of Keonjhar alone. With massive deforestation occurring in the area, elephants have been found venturing into farms and breaking into food storage areas. Though by nature elephants are relatively passive creatues, they can become hostile towards humans if provoked, scared or blocked from food. The casual stomp of their feet can also be fatal to those unlucky enough to fall underfoot. Ivory poachers, on the other hand, see village-venturing elephants as easy targets. Adam Flinn, a volunteer from Elephant Nature Park, says human development is increasingly encroaching on elephant habitats, leading to an ongoing state of conflict. “It is basically a question of resources and space,” he adds. “Migratory routes are blocked as land is used for agriculture, housing, industry or tourism.” Oblivious to human-imposed boundaries, elephant herds sometimes wander through occupied land, eating farmers’ crops and on occasion destroying property. “If money can be made from a patch of land that an elephant herd occupies, profits will almost always win,” says Flinn.
