https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBehW5uQ6wM
Showing posts with label Cambodian wild elephants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cambodian wild elephants. Show all posts
Friday, June 08, 2012
Monday, September 26, 2011
Last of the elephant riders
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| A mahout pauses for a smoke. Once used for heavy lifting in the jungle, now most elephants haul tourists. |
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| A typical wooden Jarai house on stilts. The Jarai, like many ethnic minorities, are very poor. |
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| A Jarai man plays a traditional musical instrument. Not only the instruments, but also the people that know how to make or even play them are all becoming scarce. |
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| The elephant named "elephant" grabs a snack. Sadly, this fellow appears to be undernourished. |
In Cambodia, amidst exotic wildlife and temple ruins, hill tribes still tame and work with elephants. But for how long?
26 September, 2011
By Adam Bray
CNN Go
It's early in the morning and my motorbike guide is driving me two hours northeast from Ban Lung, the capital of Ratanakiri, toward the Vietnamese border.
My quest is to find the last of Cambodia's elephant riders.
These indigenous highlanders have captured, tamed and worked with wild elephants for 2,000 years, but their traditional ways -- and the elephants at the heart of their culture -- are quickly disappearing.
From an estimated wild population of around 500 elephants in this area in 2001, this has now halved to about 250. There were known to be 162 domesticated elephants in 2002, and this is likely to have significantly fallen too.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Elusive Wild Elephants Captured on Film in Cambodia
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| A still from the unique video, which shows the shy beast placidly munching on greenery. Credit: Allan Michaud. |
By OurAmazingPlanet Staff
Wild Asian elephants have been captured on film in Cambodia, a country where the shy giants are rarely seen, an international conservation organization announced yesterday (Dec. 21).
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has just released what may be the first high-quality professional footage of wild Asian elephants ever taken in the south Asian country. Decades of civil war and instability in the latter part of the 20th century made Asia’s largest land mammal shy and difficult to observe directly.
Wildlife photographer Allan Michaud shot footage of the shy beasts on July 24 in the newly established Seima Protection Forest, a 1,100-square-mile (2,850-square kilometer) protected area along Cambodia’s eastern border with Vietnam.
"It does seem surprising that such a large animal is actually quite elusive, but they usually avoid humans,” said Edward Pollard of WCS’s Cambodia Program. "This new footage is a great visual confirmation that Seima is vitally important for biodiversity, as well as the protection of forest carbon."
The footage captures images of a male Asian elephant casually feeding on grass on the margin of a road that runs through Seima Protection Forest, which contains a significant percentage of Cambodia’s elephant population.
In 2006, surveys that collected DNA from elephant dung revealed a population of approximately 116 animals within the protected area — but not a single elephant was seen during the study.
Most of the images of wild elephants from the region come from camera traps. The film represents only the third elephant sighting along the Seima road in the past five years.
Researchers have noted that along with the recent elephant sighting, other species observed along the road include gaur (an Asian species of wild cattle), a monkey species known as a black-shanked douc, four other species of primate, and green peafowl, indicating that wildlife are adapting to the road.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Congratulations Sereivathana Tuy, recipient of the $150,000 Goldman Enviromental Prize
The 2010 Goldman Environmental Prize winners are from left to right: Lynn Henning, Thuli Makama, Humberto Ríos Labrada, Tuy Sereivathana, Randall Arauz and Małgorzata Gorska. (The Goldman Environmental Foundation)Six get $150,000 each for eco-stands
2010 Goldman Environmental Prize winners announced
Mon., April 19, 2010
msnbc.com
Tuy Sereivathana (Cambodia) works to mitigate human-elephant conflicts by introducing low-cost ways to diffuse clashes and getting locals to help protect endangered Asian elephants.They cover the globe, from Cuba to Swaziland, but what six environmentalists now share is being named Monday as the 2010 Goldman Environmental Prize winners — and taking home $150,000 each for their activism.
"I am motivated and inspired by the courage of these leaders," Goldman Prize founder Richard Goldman, said in a statement. "Their commitment to fighting for a better future illustrates the perseverance of the grassroots environmental movement around the world."
The largest environmental award, the Goldman prize was started in 1989 by the San Francisco philanthropist. The prize honors an activist from each of Earth's six inhabited continental regions and an international jury picks winners based on confidential nominations submitted by individuals and environmental groups.
Here's a brief look at each 2010 winner:
- Thuli Makama (Swaziland) is her country's only public interest environmental attorney, challenging the forced evictions and violence against poor Swazis living next to conservation areas.
- Tuy Sereivathana (Cambodia) works to mitigate human-elephant conflicts by introducing low-cost ways to diffuse clashes and getting locals to help protect endangered Asian elephants.
- Malgorzata Gorska (Poland) protects the Rospuda Valley, one of Europe's last wildernesses, from threats that included a now-stopped highway project.
- Humberto Rios Labrada (Cuba) fosters seed diversity and low-input sustainable agriculture at 50,000 farms. As a result, chemical exposure among rural Cubans has fallen, while crop yields have increased.
- Lynn Henning (USA) tracks pollution from large farms, known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). Regulators in her home state of Michigan have issued hundreds of citations for water quality violations.
- Randall Arauz (Costa Rica) works to stop shark finning, where sharks are hunted just for their fins, which are used in shark fin soup in Asia. He led the campaign to halt the practice in Costa Rica, making his country an international model for shark protection.
Elephant peacemaker given Goldman Prize
Sereivathana Tuy cares for elephants at the Phnom Ta Mao Zoo in Takeo, a province in southeastern Cambodia. He has helped villagers learn to live with elephants instead of killing them. (Courtesy / Geoffrey Cain)
Sereivathana Tuy (right) teaches villagers how to plant crops to fend off hungry elephants and prevent attacks. (Courtesy / Geoffrey Cain)
Prey Proseth, Cambodia (Chronicle Graphic)Monday, April 19, 2010
Geoffrey Cain
Special to The San Francisco Chronicle
(04-19) Prey Proseth, Cambodia -- Sokha Seang, a 32-year-old rice farmer, recalls the night last spring when three elephants destroyed his home.
"They wanted to eat the food that we stored in our homes," he said. "I lost everything."
Poor farmers like Seang have felt obligated to kill the elephants - with guns, sharp bamboo sticks or poison - because they cannot afford to lose their crops. But now, thanks to a soft-spoken man known affectionately as "Uncle Elephant," farmers have found a more peaceful way of living with the elephants, said Seang, who lives in this village in the southwest province of Koh Kong.
In Cambodia's elephant zones, Sereivathana Tuy has stopped farmers from cutting the animal's nationwide population - which stands at less than 400. For that, he is one of six recipients of the Goldman Environmental Prize, to be awarded today in San Francisco.
Seang credits Tuy for his newfound harmony with the hungry behemoths. Instead of using deadly weapons against the endangered Asian elephants, Seang and other villagers now ward off attacks with hot chile peppers, fences, fireworks and foghorns.
Tuy, 39, was a park ranger in the 1990s when he developed a community-based model for ending human-elephant conflict that revolves around building trust with farmers and giving them the resources to fend off elephant attacks. In 2003, he brought his model to Flora and Fauna International, a nonprofit wildlife organization based in Cambridge, England.
The project is among recent efforts across Asia and Africa to save dwindling elephant populations.
"It ties in with a growing realization," said Simon Hedges, Asian Elephant coordinator at the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York, that methods relying heavily on law enforcement "haven't worked especially well."
Teach kids first
The Cambodian program begins with teachers who educate children on how to co-exist with elephants in one of four schools across the country in isolated communities. The children then pass the new knowledge to their parents. Soon, "the whole village is talking about these techniques," Tuy said.
The plan also encourages farmers to alternate rapidly growing crops such as cucumbers and white radishes, which can be harvested several times a year before elephants have the chance to eat them. Tuy also encourages farmers to stop planting crops that elephants love - watermelons, sugarcane and bananas - in favor of ones they detest, such as eggplant and chile peppers.
"This way, the villagers keep their harvest and we conserve the elephant population," he said.
In Cambodia, the clash between elephants and humans peaked after the communist Khmer Rouge regime was ousted in 1979. Vast deforestation followed, forcing elephants to search for food and water on farmlands near their traditional forests.
Poaching drops off
At the same time, wealthy Cambodians sought expensive elephant tails, tusks and the tips of their trunks - body parts they believe are symbols of power. This led to widespread poaching, Tuy says.
Before Tuy became director of his elephant project in 2005, conservationists would often report elephant killings to the police, who would then jail the perpetrators until a fine, sometimes as much as $2,400, could be negotiated.
Today, poaching has been reduced significantly. Irate farmers, however, are still known to kill elephants that threaten their crops. Tuy says law enforcement is just part of the solution. "Ultimately, you need education and improved livelihoods," he said.
Love of pachyderms
Ironically, Tuy's passion for wildlife sparked under the Khmer Rouge.
In 1975, he and his family were forced to leave the capital of Phnom Penh and toil on a rice farm in southeastern Kandal province. When the Maoist regime was ousted four years later, Tuy and his family returned to the city to find their house destroyed and most of their relatives missing. Depressed, he returned to the countryside to continue farming before a chance encounter changed his life.
In 1981, a group of mahouts, or elephant trainers selling traditional medicines, arrived near his village with two elephants bedecked in opulent jewels.
"I saw the elephants, and I was amazed by them," Tuy recalled. "I fed the elephants for the first time. I couldn't sleep that night because I saw elephants in front of my eyes."
In 1988, Tuy won a scholarship to study forestry at a university in Minsk, the capital of what is today Belarus. Four years later, he returned to Cambodia to work as a park ranger.
Tuy estimates that there have been between five and 10 elephant attacks on humans since 2003, and only one death since 2005 - a sign that farmers are using safer methods to drive elephants away.
He hopes that his program will double the elephant population to 1,000 elephants in 20 years. He concedes that would be a difficult feat, given the animal's long gestation and maturation process. Asian elephants, which can live as long as 60 years, don't reproduce until they are between 8 and 14 years of age - enough time to be killed by predators, poachers or disease.
For now, however, Tuy's biggest hope in saving the elephants is changing Cambodian attitudes.
"When I was a poacher, I made a mistake," said Sophal Shout, a 54-year-old community leader in Prey Proseth who teaches villagers about alternative ways of repelling elephant attacks. Tuy "helped me find the right path."
Endangered elephants
There are three species of elephants: the African Bush Elephant, African Forest Elephant and the smaller Asian elephant.
African: The largest populations, found in eastern and southern Africa, are threatened by the ivory trade. At the start of the 20th century, the African population was estimated at between 5 million and 10 million. By the end of the century, poaching and deforestation had reduced their numbers to about 500,000.
Asian: Experts say 40,000 to 50,000 wild Asian elephants live across Asia, 60 percent of them in India. In Cambodia, deforestation has caused the elephant population to dwindle from 2,000 in 1995 to fewer than 400 in 2010. In Vietnam, Laos, Bangladesh, China and Nepal, experts say only 300 or so are left in each country.
"They wanted to eat the food that we stored in our homes," he said. "I lost everything."
Poor farmers like Seang have felt obligated to kill the elephants - with guns, sharp bamboo sticks or poison - because they cannot afford to lose their crops. But now, thanks to a soft-spoken man known affectionately as "Uncle Elephant," farmers have found a more peaceful way of living with the elephants, said Seang, who lives in this village in the southwest province of Koh Kong.
In Cambodia's elephant zones, Sereivathana Tuy has stopped farmers from cutting the animal's nationwide population - which stands at less than 400. For that, he is one of six recipients of the Goldman Environmental Prize, to be awarded today in San Francisco.
Seang credits Tuy for his newfound harmony with the hungry behemoths. Instead of using deadly weapons against the endangered Asian elephants, Seang and other villagers now ward off attacks with hot chile peppers, fences, fireworks and foghorns.
Tuy, 39, was a park ranger in the 1990s when he developed a community-based model for ending human-elephant conflict that revolves around building trust with farmers and giving them the resources to fend off elephant attacks. In 2003, he brought his model to Flora and Fauna International, a nonprofit wildlife organization based in Cambridge, England.
The project is among recent efforts across Asia and Africa to save dwindling elephant populations.
"It ties in with a growing realization," said Simon Hedges, Asian Elephant coordinator at the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York, that methods relying heavily on law enforcement "haven't worked especially well."
Teach kids first
The Cambodian program begins with teachers who educate children on how to co-exist with elephants in one of four schools across the country in isolated communities. The children then pass the new knowledge to their parents. Soon, "the whole village is talking about these techniques," Tuy said.
The plan also encourages farmers to alternate rapidly growing crops such as cucumbers and white radishes, which can be harvested several times a year before elephants have the chance to eat them. Tuy also encourages farmers to stop planting crops that elephants love - watermelons, sugarcane and bananas - in favor of ones they detest, such as eggplant and chile peppers.
"This way, the villagers keep their harvest and we conserve the elephant population," he said.
In Cambodia, the clash between elephants and humans peaked after the communist Khmer Rouge regime was ousted in 1979. Vast deforestation followed, forcing elephants to search for food and water on farmlands near their traditional forests.
Poaching drops off
At the same time, wealthy Cambodians sought expensive elephant tails, tusks and the tips of their trunks - body parts they believe are symbols of power. This led to widespread poaching, Tuy says.
Before Tuy became director of his elephant project in 2005, conservationists would often report elephant killings to the police, who would then jail the perpetrators until a fine, sometimes as much as $2,400, could be negotiated.
Today, poaching has been reduced significantly. Irate farmers, however, are still known to kill elephants that threaten their crops. Tuy says law enforcement is just part of the solution. "Ultimately, you need education and improved livelihoods," he said.
Love of pachyderms
Ironically, Tuy's passion for wildlife sparked under the Khmer Rouge.
In 1975, he and his family were forced to leave the capital of Phnom Penh and toil on a rice farm in southeastern Kandal province. When the Maoist regime was ousted four years later, Tuy and his family returned to the city to find their house destroyed and most of their relatives missing. Depressed, he returned to the countryside to continue farming before a chance encounter changed his life.
In 1981, a group of mahouts, or elephant trainers selling traditional medicines, arrived near his village with two elephants bedecked in opulent jewels.
"I saw the elephants, and I was amazed by them," Tuy recalled. "I fed the elephants for the first time. I couldn't sleep that night because I saw elephants in front of my eyes."
In 1988, Tuy won a scholarship to study forestry at a university in Minsk, the capital of what is today Belarus. Four years later, he returned to Cambodia to work as a park ranger.
Tuy estimates that there have been between five and 10 elephant attacks on humans since 2003, and only one death since 2005 - a sign that farmers are using safer methods to drive elephants away.
He hopes that his program will double the elephant population to 1,000 elephants in 20 years. He concedes that would be a difficult feat, given the animal's long gestation and maturation process. Asian elephants, which can live as long as 60 years, don't reproduce until they are between 8 and 14 years of age - enough time to be killed by predators, poachers or disease.
For now, however, Tuy's biggest hope in saving the elephants is changing Cambodian attitudes.
"When I was a poacher, I made a mistake," said Sophal Shout, a 54-year-old community leader in Prey Proseth who teaches villagers about alternative ways of repelling elephant attacks. Tuy "helped me find the right path."
Endangered elephants
There are three species of elephants: the African Bush Elephant, African Forest Elephant and the smaller Asian elephant.
African: The largest populations, found in eastern and southern Africa, are threatened by the ivory trade. At the start of the 20th century, the African population was estimated at between 5 million and 10 million. By the end of the century, poaching and deforestation had reduced their numbers to about 500,000.
Asian: Experts say 40,000 to 50,000 wild Asian elephants live across Asia, 60 percent of them in India. In Cambodia, deforestation has caused the elephant population to dwindle from 2,000 in 1995 to fewer than 400 in 2010. In Vietnam, Laos, Bangladesh, China and Nepal, experts say only 300 or so are left in each country.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Cambodia villagers save elephants
Elephants are losing their natural habitats, becoming a tourist attractionTuesday, October 13, 2009
By Guy DeLauney
BBC News, Phnom Penh
Conservationists in Cambodia have brokered an agreement which should see elephants living more peacefully alongside their human neighbours.
Villagers living near elephant habitats have promised not to harm the animals - or disturb their environment.
In return the local farmers are receiving help to keep the elephants away from their crops.
Human-elephant conflict can develop wherever the animals live close to people.
As villagers develop and expand their land, elephants lose their habitat.
At the same time, they become more likely to wander into fields - destroying crops and occasionally attacking humans and livestock.
Wild alternatives
This situation has put wild elephant populations in danger in a number of countries.
Conservationists are keen to prevent the same thing happening in Cambodia.
Elephant numbers are finally on the rise here - after decades of war and deforestation.
The organisation Fauna and Flora International is helping to keep the peace between people and pachyderms.
It is giving villagers funding to develop small businesses like chicken-farming - as an alternative to clearing the forests the elephants call home.
They are also giving advice on how to keep the elephants away from crops.
"Growing different types of crops is one line of defence, such as chilli fences around the boundaries of their fields," said Matt Maltby, who is in charge of FFI's elephant protection scheme.
"Elephants don't like chillies, so they will naturally turn the other way. If that doesn't work, or if chillies aren't available, then we can deploy solar-powered electric fences," Mr Maltby explained.
That might be a bit of a shock for the elephants - but not enough to harm them.
They may not like the chillies and electric fences - but the villagers' promise to protect the elephants' habitat should be rather more palatable.
Villagers living near elephant habitats have promised not to harm the animals - or disturb their environment.
In return the local farmers are receiving help to keep the elephants away from their crops.
Human-elephant conflict can develop wherever the animals live close to people.
As villagers develop and expand their land, elephants lose their habitat.
At the same time, they become more likely to wander into fields - destroying crops and occasionally attacking humans and livestock.
Wild alternatives
This situation has put wild elephant populations in danger in a number of countries.
Conservationists are keen to prevent the same thing happening in Cambodia.
Elephant numbers are finally on the rise here - after decades of war and deforestation.
The organisation Fauna and Flora International is helping to keep the peace between people and pachyderms.
It is giving villagers funding to develop small businesses like chicken-farming - as an alternative to clearing the forests the elephants call home.
They are also giving advice on how to keep the elephants away from crops.
"Growing different types of crops is one line of defence, such as chilli fences around the boundaries of their fields," said Matt Maltby, who is in charge of FFI's elephant protection scheme.
"Elephants don't like chillies, so they will naturally turn the other way. If that doesn't work, or if chillies aren't available, then we can deploy solar-powered electric fences," Mr Maltby explained.
That might be a bit of a shock for the elephants - but not enough to harm them.
They may not like the chillies and electric fences - but the villagers' promise to protect the elephants' habitat should be rather more palatable.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Where are Asia's endangered wild elephants?
A camera trap captures an elephant's attention. A few camera traps are destroyed each year by camera shy elephants, but WWF has been relatively lucky to have lost so few (Photo: WWF-Cambodia/DNCP/FA)March 16 (Reuters) -- Asia's elephants once roamed across nine million square kilometres of forests from the Iranian coast to the Indian subcontinent, Java, Sumatra and Borneo, and China. Now extinct in west Asia, Java and most of China, about 40,000 to 50,000 remain in pockets of forest in 13 states.
About 15,000 Asian elephants live in captivity as work animals, mostly in India, Myanmar and Thailand. By contrast, there are only about 500 captive African elephants, mostly in western zoos, and a wild population of 400,000-660,000 animals.
Here are some facts about Asia's wild elephants and the threats facing them, listed by estimated population size:
* INDIA: 23,900-32,900. Home to 60 percent of Asia's elephants, India has the highest death rate from human-elephant conflict, with 200-250 people and 100 elephants killed annually. Habitat fragmentation, poaching of tusked males, and patchy forest law enforcement are problems, but numbers are rebounding.
* MYANMAR: 3,000-4,000. Most large herds live in forested hills by the borders with Bangladesh, India, China, and Thailand. Wild capture was banned in 1994, but captives are still taken to join 4,500 working elephants in logging camps.
* THAILAND: 3,000-3,700. Numbers dropped sharply with human population growth and forest clearances. Legal ivory sales from captive elephants allegedly lets dealers 'launder' illegal ivory.
* SRI LANKA: 2,100-3,000. The stars of many local festivals, herds have been pushed to the southwest of the island due to intense conflict over crops, and blown up by landmines.
* INDONESIA: 1,180-1,557 Sumatra. No Borneo estimate. Rapid forest conversions has hit Sumatran and Bornean elephants hard. From 1985, hundreds were taken to Sumatran 'Elephant Training Centres' to stop conflict. Many died. Intense conflict remains.
* MALAYSIA: 1,250-1,466 Peninsula and 1,100-1,600 Borneo. Hundreds have been removed to national parks since the 1970s, to stop raids on plantations as jungles were cleared. Translocation has ensured healthy elephant populations.
* LAOS: 780-1,200. Known as the Land of a Million Elephants, herds suffer hunting and habitat loss from logging, agriculture and hydroelectric projects. Lack of funds hampers conservation.
* BHUTAN: 400-600. Confined to southern plains and foothills elephants are mostly seasonal migrants, crossing to Bhutan to escape India's monsoons, and migrating back to India in summer.
* CAMBODIA: 250-600. Elephants helped build ancient Angkor Wat, but also hunted for ivory and meat, blown up by land mines in the civil war and killed for raiding crops. Relatively good habitat makes them better placed than others for a recovery.
* CHINA: 200-250. Small but viable herds live in southern Yunnan province. Numbers are rising, thanks to reproduction and immigration of Laos herds. China is also a large illegal manufacturer and trader of ivory, mostly from African elephants.
* BANGLADESH: 196-227. The human population explosion sparked intense competition for land and conflicts with elephants, which now live only in isolated areas. A lack of active conservation projects makes Bangladesh's elephants highly threatened.
* NEPAL: 100-170. Many roam between India and Nepal, where rapidly rising human populations devastated lowland forest herds. Small herds have stabilised in protected reserves.
* VIETNAM: 76-94. Hunting, forest clearances and warfare that saw forests bombed and poisoned with Agent Orange and other defoliants, made elephants functionally extinct. Conservationists hope inviable herds will cross to Cambodia and Laos.
Sources: Reuters, Interview with Professor Raman Sukumar, Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, EleAid Web Site (http://www.eleaid.com)
(Writing by Gillian Murdoch; Singapore Editorial Reference Unit)
About 15,000 Asian elephants live in captivity as work animals, mostly in India, Myanmar and Thailand. By contrast, there are only about 500 captive African elephants, mostly in western zoos, and a wild population of 400,000-660,000 animals.
Here are some facts about Asia's wild elephants and the threats facing them, listed by estimated population size:
* INDIA: 23,900-32,900. Home to 60 percent of Asia's elephants, India has the highest death rate from human-elephant conflict, with 200-250 people and 100 elephants killed annually. Habitat fragmentation, poaching of tusked males, and patchy forest law enforcement are problems, but numbers are rebounding.
* MYANMAR: 3,000-4,000. Most large herds live in forested hills by the borders with Bangladesh, India, China, and Thailand. Wild capture was banned in 1994, but captives are still taken to join 4,500 working elephants in logging camps.
* THAILAND: 3,000-3,700. Numbers dropped sharply with human population growth and forest clearances. Legal ivory sales from captive elephants allegedly lets dealers 'launder' illegal ivory.
* SRI LANKA: 2,100-3,000. The stars of many local festivals, herds have been pushed to the southwest of the island due to intense conflict over crops, and blown up by landmines.
* INDONESIA: 1,180-1,557 Sumatra. No Borneo estimate. Rapid forest conversions has hit Sumatran and Bornean elephants hard. From 1985, hundreds were taken to Sumatran 'Elephant Training Centres' to stop conflict. Many died. Intense conflict remains.
* MALAYSIA: 1,250-1,466 Peninsula and 1,100-1,600 Borneo. Hundreds have been removed to national parks since the 1970s, to stop raids on plantations as jungles were cleared. Translocation has ensured healthy elephant populations.
* LAOS: 780-1,200. Known as the Land of a Million Elephants, herds suffer hunting and habitat loss from logging, agriculture and hydroelectric projects. Lack of funds hampers conservation.
* BHUTAN: 400-600. Confined to southern plains and foothills elephants are mostly seasonal migrants, crossing to Bhutan to escape India's monsoons, and migrating back to India in summer.
* CAMBODIA: 250-600. Elephants helped build ancient Angkor Wat, but also hunted for ivory and meat, blown up by land mines in the civil war and killed for raiding crops. Relatively good habitat makes them better placed than others for a recovery.
* CHINA: 200-250. Small but viable herds live in southern Yunnan province. Numbers are rising, thanks to reproduction and immigration of Laos herds. China is also a large illegal manufacturer and trader of ivory, mostly from African elephants.
* BANGLADESH: 196-227. The human population explosion sparked intense competition for land and conflicts with elephants, which now live only in isolated areas. A lack of active conservation projects makes Bangladesh's elephants highly threatened.
* NEPAL: 100-170. Many roam between India and Nepal, where rapidly rising human populations devastated lowland forest herds. Small herds have stabilised in protected reserves.
* VIETNAM: 76-94. Hunting, forest clearances and warfare that saw forests bombed and poisoned with Agent Orange and other defoliants, made elephants functionally extinct. Conservationists hope inviable herds will cross to Cambodia and Laos.
Sources: Reuters, Interview with Professor Raman Sukumar, Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, EleAid Web Site (http://www.eleaid.com)
(Writing by Gillian Murdoch; Singapore Editorial Reference Unit)
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