Wild elephants poaching in Laos
Elephant Killings in Laos – Bad News from Phou Khao Khouai
By Sven Mauleon, OpenmindProjects
The local villagers of Ban Na, Laos, work hard for a living. They have agreed to help protect the wild elephants that once ruined their sugar cane fields. In exchange they earn income from tourists coming to watch wild elephants since the opening of an elephant observation tower. The tourists spend money on home stay accommodation, tower entry fees, village tour guides, food and the purchase of local made handicraft. Now ruthless intruders have arrived and in a short while killed 5, maybe 6 elephants, cut off the precious parts, demanded by wealthy Chinese and other consumers of exotic animal parts and left the bodies to rot in the sun. That is how the villagers found them, by the stench.
March 9 some villagers heard far away shots and two days later they found the carcasses of 5 elephants, some very young, in the mountains. Buntanom, the head of the Ban Na village guide team went to see for himself the following day and could only notice himself that their efforts to protect the elephants had not managed to keep the poachers away .
If those killers were successful once they or others may well try again, not only in the Phou Khao Khouai Mountains but elsewhere, in Laos or nearby Thailand.
Says Buntanom, the head of the guides in Phou Khao Khouai: “We don’t know who did it and we don’t know what weapons they used but the military are trying to find out. It may well be that more elephants have been killed but not found. It’s a big area, the mountains stretch far and it’s not easy to survey, control what is going on. We just hope to keep them away from the area around the elephant watch tower where the elephants regularly come for water in the late afternoons, evenings. We have agreed to add extra village security force patrols to protect the conservation area ’.
The Ban Na herd of wild elephants used to number around 40 individuals in 2005, but now no one is sure how many are left.
The international illegal trade in wildlife totals billions of dollars a year. Third only to the illegal weapons and drugs trades! Live animals and animal parts of endangered species are sold in markets and often smuggled to China
Some animals end up as trophies, some in private zoos. Even more end up in Chinese and other specialty restaurants. Some are used in traditional Asian medicines. Local laws don’t help much since fines are much lower than profits!
Sven Mauleon, [email protected], is the founder of OpenmindProjects, www.openmindprojects.org that supports the Phou Khao Khouai and other responsible eco tourism projects in Thailand, Laos and Nepal where international volunteers go to help the local community.
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