Laos --- Land of a Million Elephants!
Laos --- Land of a Million Elephants! Today there are only 400 wild and 450 captive elephants. Elephants will be extinct by 2030 unless significant changes are made. These include the protection of elephant corridors and ending the corporate and corrupt political partnerships with China's Belt and Road economic developments. China is, by far, the main driver of elephant extinction here in Lao, as they are throughout the world.
The market in China for elephant parts is so strong that many mahouts are leading their elephants into the forest, and under the cover of these remote places, are starving them to death and then selling body parts to the Chinese.
Laos' forest cover has declined dramatically in recent decades – down from an estimated 70 percent of land area in the mid-1960s to about 45 percent now. This deforestation has occurred with no forethought as to wildlife corridors. Like in Sri Lanka, human/elephant conflict has skyrocketed - the elephants being blocked from accessing known foraging grounds and instead discovering highly nutritious cultivations. The farmers, who have tended these fields for many generations are now confronted with the risk of starvation, as an elephant can eat a family's entire years food supply in a single evening.
What to do? 1) Make illegal all sales of elephant parts and ivory...enforcing the law and jailing perpetrators. 2) Stop all logging within critical wildlife areas, principally elephant habitat. 3) Future and previous Chinese-invested Belt and Road infrastructure must be corrected/mitigated to incorporate safe and effective elephant corridors. 4) Prior to initiating any future agreements with China, they must be bound to treaties that require them to assist in stopping illegal wildlife trade, whether it be live animals or animal parts. 5) Mahouts are being stressed evermore due to Covid. This is driving them to extreme actions, as discussed above. The government or NGOs with greater financial wherewithal than SavingGanesh.org, should buy out the mahouts and bring the elephants to the 494,210 acre Nam Pouy National Protected Area, where they can either be set free or live in a semi-wild existence.
