Tourism elephants and their mahouts

Scroll down for posts tagged with “tour­ism ele­phants and their mahouts”.

Tags are inform­al. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog tries not to get bogged down with ter­min­o­logy and defin­i­tions. You may dis­agree with tags applied (or not applied) to a post. If so, feel free to com­ment on any post you think has been incor­rectly or insuf­fi­ciently tagged. “GT” encour­ages good-faith debate and discussion.

Tourism in crisis: A Myanmar elephant camp & community pivot to plan B

and October 2, 2020

An elephant of Green Hill Valley Elephant Camp, Shan state, Myanmar. (Image by Hollis Burbank-Hammarlund). Inset: GHV's Founders Tin Win Maw (Left) and Htun Htun Wynn (Image courtesy of GHV).

Through the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and tour­ism crisis, hopes rest on con­tin­gency “plan B” to sus­tain the retired log­ging ele­phants of Green Hill Val­ley, Myan­mar and the com­munity of people who love them.  Hol­lis Bur­b­ank-Ham­­marlund of Work for Wild Life Inter­na­tion­al knows them well, hav­ing led ele­phant health­care and wel­fare work­shops at the camp in 2018 and […]

Read More Tourism in crisis: A Myanmar elephant camp & community pivot to plan B
Posted in "GT" news & events, "Good Tourism" in Asia, "Good Tourism" in Myanmar, "GT" Destinations & Places, "GT" news from Asia, Sponsored posts
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Keeping elephants healthy under the cloud of COVID-19

and June 27, 2020

Dr Wachiraporn Toonrongchang and team at at a private camp in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Image supplied by Dr Nissa Mututanont of the GTAEF Foundation.

News from the field — from the Ele­phant Health­care Emer­gency Life­line Fund in Chi­ang Mai, Thai­l­and — by Hol­lis Bur­b­ank-Ham­­marlund of Work for Wild Life Inter­na­tion­al. What’s the say­ing? An ounce of pre­ven­tion is worth a pound of cure? For Thailand’s tour­ism ele­phants con­fined to lock-down mode — along with the facil­it­ies and people who care for them — the need for routine and […]

Read More Keeping elephants healthy under the cloud of COVID-19
Posted in "GT" news & events, "Good Tourism" in Asia, "GT" news from Asia, Sponsored posts
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Elephant health experts seek emergency funds for unemployed tourism elephants

and May 8, 2020

Dr Sarisa Klinhom (L) & Dr Tittaya Janyamethakul (R) attend to Mae Noi in Thailand. Image supplied by author.

The expres­sion “an ele­phant in the room” means an uncom­fort­able truth we can­not ignore. With tour­ism cash flows stemmed, many Asi­an ele­phants and their mahouts in Thai­l­and and else­where are in deep trouble. Hol­lis Bur­b­ank­-Ham­­marlund of Work for Wild Life Inter­na­tion­al tells us why that’s the case and how we can help. COVID-19 has suddenly […]

Read More Elephant health experts seek emergency funds for unemployed tourism elephants
Posted in "GT" news & events, "GT" news from Asia, Sponsored posts
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Thailand says “No” to ivory in two-tusked campaign funded by USAID

September 21, 2019

Cindy Bishop featured alongside Thai writing with the message "beautiful without ivory"

A two-pronged cam­paign to reduce domest­ic con­sumer and for­eign trav­el­ler demand for ivory and ivory products launched in Bangkok, Thai­l­and yes­ter­day.  While much of the focus of the launch event was on the domest­ic con­sumer cam­paign and the celebrity influ­en­cers who are the faces of it, of greatest rel­ev­ance to the tour­ism industry is the […]

Read More Thailand says “No” to ivory in two-tusked campaign funded by USAID
Posted in "GT" news & events, "GT" news from Asia
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Safari tourism may make elephants more aggressive but is still the best conservation tool

March 22, 2019

"Cranky elephant charges our car in Tarangirie National Park, Tanzania" by Ben & Gab (CC BY 2.0) via Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/benandgab/29307883562/in/photostream/ "GT" cropped it.

While wild­life tour­ism products such as safar­is can help pro­tect anim­als and their wil­der­ness hab­it­ats by gen­er­at­ing income for con­ser­va­tion and work for loc­als, there are issues. This accord­ing to Isa­belle Szott and Nic­ola F Koy­ama of Liv­er­pool John Moores Uni­ver­sity writ­ing for The Con­ver­sa­tion. Going on safari in Africa offers tour­ists the oppor­tun­ity to […]

Read More Safari tourism may make elephants more aggressive but is still the best conservation tool
Posted in "GT" news & events, "GT" news from Africa
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Elephants are smart. What if tourism jobs were good for them?

March 14, 2019
5 Comments

A mahout feeding an elephant at the Elephant Nature Park, near Chiang Mai, Thailand. By Adbar (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Wikimedia. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mahout_Elephant_Nature_Park.JPG

Work, includ­ing offer­ing tour­ists rides, is “not bad” for ele­phants — in mod­er­a­tion — so long as it takes into account the work­load, stress, and wel­fare of each indi­vidu­al ele­phant, accord­ing to Dr Pakka­nut Ban­siddhi, Research­er, Cen­ter of Excel­lence in Ele­phant Research and Edu­ca­tion, Chi­ang Mai Uni­ver­sity. Dr Pakka­nut revealed this at the Glob­al Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Coun­cil con­fer­ence in […]

Read More Elephants are smart. What if tourism jobs were good for them?
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