GIVE: Elephants and GIVE
As a conscious, dynamic and adaptive organization, GIVE, along with our local partners, are constantly reassessing our impact on the communities we work with to ensure that our volunteer experiences align with our mission to inspire growth, empower global citizens and ignite sustainable change worldwide.
Whether you’re traveling on a volunteer program with GIVE, or you’re on your own, it’s important to be mindful of the treatment of elephants and other animals for the benefit of tourism. We recognize that there is no perfect solution to the various controversies that have riddled the elephant tourism industry, but we have carefully chosen an alternative that protects the well-being of these incredible creatures. We are excited to support our partners overseas or who playing an active role in advancing these methods.
We are excited to support our partners overseas or who playing an active role in advancing these methods.
About Working Elephants
First and foremost, most elephants in Thailand must coexist with humans in order to survive. There simply isn’t enough natural habitat left to sustain the approximately 6,000 elephants in Thailand currently. If left unchecked, wild elephants will wander into local communities, farms and roadways, creating great risk for elephants and people alike. The elephants our travelers will interact with in Northern Thailand are domesticated elephants. These elephants were born in captivity and trained at a young age to ensure obedience to their mahouts – the Karen Tribesmen native to this region that have been living alongside elephants for centuries.
Most domesticated elephants in Thailand are currently being rented out by their owners to large tourist camps, where bulky wooden saddles are strapped on to the elephant’s back for tourists to mount and enjoy rides of varying length and distance. The physical impacts of working in a traditional tourist camp are extremely taxing on elephants, as they are often expected to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. The weight of cumbersome saddles and tourists generally exceeds the load elephants can safely carry on their backs (about 150kg), often resulting in broken spines and life-long disabilities. The straps of these saddles also create painful sores that can become infected if not treated. GIVE has NEVER included such activities in our itineraries and never will.
Grassroots Elephant Camps
Many Karen mahouts, including those you’ll interact with on GIVE’s volunteer program, are infuriated by such treatment of their elephants and have begun to create more grassroots tourist camps in their home villages – reintroducing elephants to the surrounding jungle and allowing them to live a semi-wild existence while working less hours and spending more time in their native habitat.
The benefit of such projects for the elephant’s well being is multi-faceted. Studies have shown that an elephant’s overall health is greatly improved by foraging their natural diet in the jungle. Camps and sanctuaries that must produce the various crops to feed the elephants are harming their immune system and also creating a dependency on humans. Elephants that were raised in such camps have struggled greatly when being reintroduced to their natural environment, and many experts fear that over time they will lose their foraging instincts and become completely dependent on humans for nutrition.
Furthermore, the smaller number of tourists and shorter work schedules are much less demanding on the elephants, and the type of tourists who choose to visit such camps are generally more conscious of the elephant’s well-being and will choose less intrusive forms of interaction, such as feeding, bathing, or simply observing. Finally, the ability to socialize and interact freely with other elephants is paramount to an elephant’s mental health. Reintroduction and free roaming in the jungle allows them to do this on their own terms.
Adapting for Positive Change
To provide the most authentic, transparent and impactful experience for our travelers, we strive to consider all perspectives of the industry. This includes appreciating the centuries old relationship that the Karen Tribe has formed with elephants and respecting their reputation as the most experienced mahouts in the region. With limited access to education and employment in the rural communities of Northern Thailand, the outlook for mahouts to earn an alternative income is bleak if elephants were to lose their economic value. Essentially, the well-being of their families, their culture and their elephants are all intertwined. One truth that an outside observer must always respect is the unconditional love these mahouts have for their elephants. They spend years, often lifetimes, forming a mutually beneficial bond that is very hard to explain and nearly impossible to replicate.
Without a doubt, the most rewarding aspect for our volunteers is observing these incredible animals in their most authentic and natural form, so we have decided to design our program in a way that encourages this behavior and embodies GIVE’s principles. We encourage you to do your own research before traveling and, most importantly if you are a GIVE Volunteer, to get stoked for tracking elephants through the jungle, observing them in their natural habitat, and seeing firsthand how truly remarkable these creatures really are!