John Roberts

John Roberts

John Roberts saw his first cap­tive ele­phant, Sham Shere Bahadur, on the lawn of Tiger Tops Jungle Lodge, Nepal, Octo­ber 1, 1999. Des­pite being sur­roun­ded by many fas­cin­at­ing things in Chit­wan Nation­al Park he was quickly fas­cin­ated by ele­phants, not only the creatures them­selves but by the com­plex rela­tion­ships with their mahouts.

Com­ing to Thai­l­and in 2003 to man­age ele­phants exposed John to a new set of chal­lenges faced by ele­phants and their mahouts cut off from their jungle roots. He set up the award-win­ning Ele­phant Camp for Anantara Golden Tri­angle Ele­phant Camp & Resort, the first com­mer­cial oper­a­tions to replace ele­phant saddles with bare back rid­ing, and then the Golden Tri­angle Asi­an Ele­phant Found­a­tion (GTAEF) to bring street-beg­ging young ele­phants back to their nat­ur­al habitat.

As well as help­ing wild ele­phants stay wild, GTAEF now con­cen­trates on help­ing mahouts and ele­phants adapt to the real­it­ies of mod­ern life in South­east Asia. Core pro­jects such as Tar­get Train­ing Pos­it­ive Rein­force­ment Work­shops have reached more than 200 mahouts, vets, and man­agers respons­ible for thou­sands of ele­phants across eight range states. Through part­ner­ships with oth­er organ­isa­tions, GTAEF is provid­ing the first full-time veter­in­ary care to South­east Asia’s most pop­u­lous cap­tive ele­phant site, home to the mahout tra­di­tion argu­ably most cut-off from it’s roots, Ban Ta Klang, Thai­l­and. There they also provide chil­dren with full-time Eng­lish train­ing and con­ser­va­tion education.

John is a mem­ber of the IUCN SSC Asi­an Ele­phant Spe­cial­ist Group and co-chair of the Asi­an Cap­tive Ele­phant Work­ing Group. Since the start of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic John, his GTAEF team, and the ele­phants have live-streamed nearly daily via Face­book at GTAEF Help­ing Ele­phants and Ins­tagram at @GTAEF_Thailand.