MYANMAR TIMBER ELEPHANTS & VOICES FOR MOMOS CAMPAIGN

11/3/2017 Elephant Conservation: “Voices For MoMos” Campaign From 2017 November To 2018 April | Myanmar International TV
http://www.myanmarinternationaltv.com/news/elephant-conservation-%E2%80%9Cvoices-momos%E2%80%9D-campaign-2017-november-2018-april 1/3
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1 November 2017

11/3/2017 Elephant Conservation: “Voices For MoMos” Campaign From 2017 November To 2018 April | Myanmar International TV
http://www.myanmarinternationaltv.com/news/elephant-conservation-%E2%80%9Cvoices-momos%E2%80%9D-campaign-2017-november-2018-april 2/3
“Voices for MoMos” campaign will be carried out for six months as of November to April. It aims to
reduce the illegal wildlife trading and protect the wild elephants from killing.
The campaign will be carried out by 6 non-governmental organizations working on wildlife
conservation and forest department under Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental
Conservation.
The campaign is the first step of the strategies implementing to eliminate the illegal sale of wild
elephant products, Partnership Director of WWF-Myanmar said.
Partnership Director, WWF-Myanmar, May Moe Wah said “The 1st step … 6-month campaign will
focus on public awareness. The 2nd step will be giving development training to those working on
ground. After the steps, we will form task forces to reduce the illegal sale of wild elephant. Forest
Department officials will join with us in all.”
It’s estimated that there are 1400 to 2000 wild elephants in Myanmar and the population is on the
decrease. 30 wild elephants were killed in the period of from January to August 2017. Experts
predict that Myanmar’s wild elephants could be wiped out by 2013 to 2035. Department of Forest
has been working for the protection of wild elephants from illegal killing by hunters. But lack of
human resources is the main challenge, Manager of the department said.
Manager, Department of Forest, Dr. Zaw Min Oo said “We cannot cover the whole forest areas in
order to protect elephants from illegal killing as we do not have enough human resources.
Nowadays, hunters use poisoned arrows to kill elephants which leave them dead after 3 days. In
such case, we can’t save them. We can only search for hunters and take actions. So, I think we
have to work to help the hunters work in other kinds of jobs and educate them to save the
elephants.”
In Myanmar, Ayeyarwaddy and Bago regions and Rakhine State have a dense elephant
population, according to officials.

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ေတာဆင္ရိုင္းမ် ား သတ္ ၿဖတ္ ခံရၿပီး အေရအတြက္ လ် င္ၿမန္စြာေလ် ာ့ နည္ းလာမႈေၾကာင့္ Voices For MOMOS ၿမန္မာ့ ဆင္မ် ားအတြက္ ရင္တြင္းစကားသံလႈပ္ရွားမႈကို သဘာ၀ပတ္ ၀န္းက် င္ ထိန္းသိမ္းသည့္ အဖြဲ႔အစည္ း
(၆)ခုပူးေပါင္းလုပ္ေဆာင္သြားမယ္ လုိ႔သိရပါတယ္ ။ Voices For MOMOS ၿမန္မာ့ ဆင္မ် ားအတြက္ ရင္တြင္းစကားသံလႈပ္ရွားမႈအစီအစဥ္ကို ဇီ၀မ် ိဳးစံုမ် ိဳးကြဲႏွင့္ သဘာ၀ပတ္ ၀န္းက် င္ထိန္းသိမ္းေရးအသင္း၊ႏိုင္ငံတကာေ
တာရိုင္းတိရစာၦန္ႏွင့္ အပင္ထိန္းသိမ္းေရးအဖြဲ႔၊ ေတာရိုင္းတိရစာၦန္ထိန္းသိမ္းေရးမိတ္ ေဆြမ် ားအသင္း၊Grow Back for Posterity ၊ သားငွက္ ထိန္းသိမ္း ေရးအဖြဲ႔၊ ကမာၻလံုးဆုိင္ရာ သဘာ၀ပတ္ ၀န္းက် င္ ရံပံုေငြအဖြဲ႔တို႔က
ပူးေပါင္း လုပ္ေဆာင္သြားမွာၿဖစ္တယ္ လုိ႔ သိရပါတယ္ ။
ဒီအစီအစဥ္အတြက္ (၂၀၁၇)ႏုိ၀င္ဘာလကေန (၂၀၁၈) ဧၿပီလအထိ (၆)လတာစီမံကိန္းအၿဖစ္ ေတာရိုင္းတိရိစာၦန္မ် ား တရားမ၀င္ကုန္သြယ္ ေနသည့္ လုပ္ငန္းမ် ား ပေပ် ာက္ ဖို႔ အသိပညာေပး စည္ းရံုးလံႈ႔ေဆာ္ မႈ ေတြကို
ကနဦးအစီအစဥ္အၿဖစ္ လုပ္ေဆာင္သြားမွာ ၿဖစ္တယ္ လို႔ သိရပါတယ္ ။
ဆင္ရဲ႕အေရၿပားအပါအ၀င္ ဆင္ခႏၶာကိုယ္ အစိတ္ အပိုင္းေတြဟာ ေစ် းကြက္ မွာ ၀ယ္ လုိအား ျမင့္မားလာတာ ေၾကာင့္ ဆင္ေတြကိုအမဲလုိက္ သတ္ ၿဖတ္ မႈေတြ ရွိလာတာၿဖစ္တယ္ လို႔ သိရပါတယ္ ။ သယံဇာတႏွင့္ သဘာ၀
ပတ္ ၀န္းက် င္ ထိန္းသိန္းေရး၀န္ၾကီးဌာနရဲ႕ တရား၀င္ကိန္းဂဏန္းေတြအရ ၿမန္မာႏုိင္ငံမွာ (၂၀၁၆)ခုႏွစ္အတြင္း ေတာဆင္ရိုင္းေကာင္ေရ (၁၈)ေကာင္ထိ သတ္ ၿဖတ္ ခံခဲ့ရၿပီး (၂၀၁၇)ခုႏွစ္ ဇန္န၀ါရီလကေန ၾသဂုတ္ လ
အထိ အနည္ းဆံုးအေကာင္ေရ (၃၀)အထိ သတ္ ၿဖတ္ ခံခဲ့ ရၿပီး ၿဖစ္တယ္ လုိ႔သိရပါတယ္ ။
လက္ ရွိအခ် ိန္ ၿမန္မာႏုိင္ငံမွာေတာဆင္ရိုင္းေကာင္ေရ (၁၄၀၀)န႔ဲ (၂၀၀၀)ၾကားမွာသာ က် န္ရွိေနေတာ့ ၿပီး ဆင္အပါအ၀င္ ေတာရိုင္းတိရစာၦန္နွင့္ ဆက္ စပ္ပစၥည္ းေတြကို ေရာင္း၀ယ္ ေနတာ ေတြကို ရပ္တန္႔ပစ္ႏုိင္ဖို႔ရည္
ရြယ္ ၿပီး ဒီအစီအစဥ္ေတြကို ျပဳလုပ္သြားမွာ ၿဖစ္တယ္ လုိ႔သိရပါတယ္ ။
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2Y7SuO1mxo
Shape Entertainment
Published on Nov 2, 2017
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ေတြံာဆင္ရိဆင္းမြံ္းားတငတ တငာတေ္အေရအေြံခြာအရေ ္းေနငာတေ္္း ရေရ ရိာတိရုတ
တိရုတပ င္ ငာVOICES FOR MOMOS ပြ္းေပဆင္း ိပငောြံဆငမင ရိာေတဆင
ေတဆငေ ြံငောြံဆင ==========================
ာဆင္ရိဆင္းာတေ္တတေ ငာ ဆငတမ ငေေြံေ ြံန ေင္း ြံးေနငာတေတအတေ
တေတအတေ ရိာ ြံ ေခငတြံ္းာဆ္းာတိ ုငတပ င ရိဆင္ ငတတေ ငား ြံ
း ြံဝပတငဝ င္း ဆငာ ရ င္းးရမင္းးေနငာတ ေုတေေင္းာစာအိ ားခရကြံ
းခရကြံတႏွဆနငား ြံဝပတငဝ င္း ဆငာ ရ င္းးရမင္းေ္္းာဝ င ဆ္းနြံ ကာတမ ငမြံန
တမ ငမြံနာဆငာ ရ င္းးရမင္းေ္္းာ ိပငဆ င္းတေဆတေအငာအစဥ္ (MECAP) ရိာ
တေ ြံ ငတပရနတ ေငေေ္ ငာ ခငပခငတးဆ္းးဆ္းမွာပဝဆင ိပငောြံဆင ရိဆငားေနငာ
VOICES FOR MOMOS (တမ ငမြံနာဆငမြံ္းတတေ ငာ္ဆငတေဆင္းေ ြံ္းးရ ာ ြ
ြပင္ွြံ္းမွိ ရိာေတဆင ရိ ငတအဆင္းာတးရေပ္းတအဆင္းာတအမင္းတ ြံ္း ရိာႏရိ ဆင ြံ
ႏရိ ဆင ြံ ာာာ္ ငရာ္ ာ၂ာ ာပ ငးြ္ရခာေ ြံင ဆာရိဆငတေဆငာ ဆင္းပအုပတခင႔ပါတယ္။
ကဆဝမရ္းေိရမရ္း ေႏွဆနငား ြံဝပတငဝ င္း ဆင ရ င္းးရမင္းေ္္းတးဆင္းာအစဥ္ (BANCA)ရာ
ရိဆငဆရတ ြံာေတြံ္ရိဆင္းတရ္ေရြံ ငႏွဆနငာတပဆငာ ရ င္းးရမင္းေ္္းတ ေောအစဥ္ (FFI)ာတမ ငမြံရာေတြံ
ေတြံ္ရိဆင္းတရ္ေရြံ ငာ ရ င္းးရမင္းေ္္းာမရတငောေမြံ္းတးဆင္းာအစဥ္ (FoW)ရာGrow Back
for Posterity (GBP)ရားြံ္းဆွ င ရ င္းးရမင္းေ္္းတ ေောအစဥ္ (WCS)ရာ မၻြံ ိရ္းာရိဆင္ြံာ
း ြံဝပတငဝ င္း ဆငာ္ ငပိရေဆေတ ေောအစဥ္ (WWF) တရိုးေငာVOICES FOR
MOMOS ိပင္ွြံ္းမွိ ဆ္း ရိာေတဆငးေနငာတ ေုတေေင္းမြံ္းတ ေငေ ြံဆင္းားရ္ပ

းရ္ပတခင႔ပါတယ္။ာ၎ ိပငောြံဆငာမွိ ဆ္းးေငာတမ ငမြံ ရိဆငဆရ္ွရာေတြံ
ေတြံ္ရိဆင္းတရ္ေရြံ င ေ ငပေရေင္းမြံ္းာတ္ြံ္းမဝဆင ိ ငးေခငေ းေနငာ ိပငဆ
ိပငဆ င္းမြံ္း ရိာပေပြံ ငားေြံ္းေေ္ ငာ ြ
ြတေငဦ္းတေငေခြံ ငတြံ္းတ ဆနငာေးြံင ေင္းေ ြံဆင္းရာတးဆင္းတ ေ
တးဆင္းတ ေုတြံ္းတ ဆနငာေးြံင ေင္းေ ြံဆင္းာပဝဆင ိပငောြံဆငာ ရိဆငးေနငာ
ရိဆငးေနငာတပေငးြ ြ ိ ရိာတးရပေြံေပ္းမေနငာ ိပင္ွြံ္းမငမြံ္းာပဝဆငမွြံာတ ေငပ
တ ေငပတခင႔ပါတယ္။ VOICES FOR MOMOS ိပငောြံဆငမွိ ဆ္း ရိာတမြံ္းတပေငးြားတရ
းတရတပမငတမဆနငတ င ြံေေ္ ငရာတရိ ငတေ င္းာတြံ္းေပ္းမွိမြံ္းာပရိမရိ
ပရိမရိအရိဆငမြံ ြံေေ္ ငႏွဆနငာမြံ္းေေြံေးြံာေ ြံ ငပရန ြေဆမွိမြံ္းတ ဆနငာာဆငာတပတ
ာဆငာတပတဝဆငာတတအြံ္းေးြံာေတြံ္ရိဆင္းတရ္ရေရြံ ငႏွဆနငာ၎တရိုကာာ ငေပင
ာ ငေပငာတေရတငတပရိဆင္းမြံ္းာေတပြံဆငေတပြံဆငတဆင္းတဆင္းာေ္ြံဆင္းဝခင
ေ္ြံဆင္းဝခငာေ ြံ င ြံ္းေ မင ရိာ္ပငတ ုငပေငႏရိဆင္ ငာ္ေင္ေခငရာ ွိပင္ွြံ္း
ွိပင္ွြံ္းောြံဆင္ေ ငမငာတမြံ္းတတပြံ္း ရိာ ရိဝဆင ြံ မွာေတဆင ြံာ ိ
ိပငောြံဆငးေြံ္း မေငာတ ေငေ ြံဆင္းားရ္ပတခင႔ပါတယ္။
https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/asian-elephant
https://nyti.ms/2ldvlj6
https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/campaign-targets-myanmar-elephant-poaching.html
https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/in-a-disturbing-new-trend-poachers-are-killing-myanmar-s-
elephants-for-their-skin-teeth-and-tails
https://burmese.voanews.com/a/voices-for-momos-myanmar-elephant-/4095365.html

11/3/2017 Asian Elephant | Species | WWF
https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/asian-elephant 1/10
World Wildlife Fund - WWF - Worldwildilife.org
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Asian Elephant
© WWF-Indonesia/Samsul Komar
Facts
EN Status
Endangered
Population
40,000-50,000
Scientific Name
Elephas maximus indicus
Height
6.5– 11.5 feet
Asian Elephant
Adopt an Elephant

Weight
around 11,000 pounds
Length
around 21 feet
Habitats
Forests
Elephants are an important cultural icon in Asia. According to Hindu mythology, the gods (deva) and the demons (asura) churned the oceans in a search for the
elixir of life so that they would become immortal. As they did so, nine jewels surfaced, one of which was the elephant. In Hinduism, the powerful deity honored
before all sacred rituals is the elephant-headed Lord Ganesha, who is also called the Remover of Obstacles.
Asian elephants are extremely sociable, forming groups of six to seven related females that are led by the oldest female, the matriarch. Like African elephants,
these groups occasionally join others to form herds, although these associations are relatively transient.
More than two thirds of an elephant’s day may be spent feeding on grasses, but large amounts of tree bark, roots, leaves and small stems are also eaten.
Cultivated crops such as bananas, rice and sugarcane are favorite foods. Elephants are always close to a source of fresh water because they need to drink at least
once a day.
Places
Eastern Himalayas, Greater Mekong
Habitats
Forest Habitat
The right to roam: elephant encounters at a wildlife corridor
Wildlife roam large areas and do not recognize human-imposed boundaries. They need help doing things like crossing busy roads. This incredible elephant
encounter emphasized how important movement corridors are for wildlife.
Asian Elephant
Adopt an Elephant

© Dipankar Ghose / WWF-India
Blog Posts
The Asian Elephant Family
Why They Matter
Threats
Population 40,000-50,000
Extinction Risk Endangered
1. EX
Extinct
No reasonable doubt that the last individual has died
2. EW
Extinct in the Wild
Known only to survive in cultivation, in captivity or as a naturalised population
Asian Elephant
Adopt an Elephant

3. CR
Critically Endangered
Facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the Wild
4. EN
Endangered
Facing a high risk of extinction in the Wild
5. VU
Vulnerable
Facing a high risk of extinction in the Wild
6. NT
Near Threatened
Likely to qualify for a threatened category in the near future
7. LC
Least Concern
Does not qualify for Critically Endangered, Endangered, Vulnerable, or Near Threatened
Asian Elephant
Adopt an Elephant

© WWF-Indonesia
Captured elephant in Sumatra. The capture of wild elephants for domestic use has become a threat to some wild populations, seriously reducing some
numbers.
Habitat Loss
The main threat facing Indian elephants, like all Asian elephants is loss of habitat, which then results in human-elephant conflict. In South Asia, an ever-increasing
human population has led to many illegal encroachments in elephant habitat. Many infrastructure developments like roads and railway tracks also fragment habitat.
Elephants become confined to “islands” as their ancient migratory routes are cut off. Unable to mix with other herds, they run the risk of inbreeding.
Habitat loss also forces elephants into close quarters with humans. In their quest for food, a single elephant can devastate a small farmer’s crop holding in a single
feeding raid. This leaves elephants vulnerable to retaliatory killings, especially when people are injured or killed.
Illegal Wildlife Trade
Asian Elephant
Adopt an Elephant

Even where suitable habitat exists, poaching remains a threat to elephants in many areas. In 1989, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of
Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) banned the international trade in ivory. However, there are still some thriving but unregulated domestic ivory markets in a number of
countries which fuel an illegal international trade. Although most of this ivory comes from poaching of African elephants, Asian elephants are also illegally hunted for
their ivory, as well as for their skin. In some countries, political unrest is disrupting antipoaching activities.
Genetic Threat
Conservationists are concerned that a loss of male big tuskers due to poaching could lead to inbreeding and eventually to high juvenile mortality and overall low
breeding success. The loss of tuskers also reduces the probability that these longer-living lone males will mate and exchange genes with females of different sub-
populations.
Capture of Wild Elephants
The capture of wild elephants for domestic use has become a threat to some wild populations, seriously reducing some numbers. India, Vietnam and Myanmar
have banned capture in order to conserve their wild herds, but in Myanmar elephants are still caught each year for the timber and tourist industries or illegal wildlife
trade. Crude capture methods often result in elephant deaths. Efforts are being made not only to improve safety, but also to encourage captive breeding rather than
taking from the wild. With nearly 30 percent of the remaining Asian elephants in captivity, attention needs to be paid to improve care and targeted breeding
programs.
What WWF Is Doing
Asian Elephant
Adopt an Elephant

© Martin Harvey / WWF-Canon
WWF's elephant work in South Asia focuses on creating a future for elephants in a landscape dominated by humans. WWF invests in antipoaching operations,
reducing impacts on elephant populations, preventing further habitat loss and, most importantly, lowering local animosity against elephants.
Halting Poaching and Stopping Trade
In response to high incidents of elephant and tiger poaching in central Sumatra, WWF and its local partners have coordinated wildlife patrol units that conduct
antipoaching patrols, confiscate snares and other means of trapping animals, educate local people on the laws in place concerning poaching, and help authorities
apprehend criminals. The evidence collected by wildlife patrol units has helped bring known poachers to court. In many Asian countries, WWF works with TRAFFIC,
the wildlife trade monitoring network, to reduce the threat that illegal and illicit domestic ivory markets pose to wild elephants.
Reducing Human-Elephant Conflict
Asian Elephant
Adopt an Elephant

An elephant flying squad in Sumatra
WWF supports human-elephant conflict mitigation, biodiversity conservation, and awareness-building among local communities in two elephant habitats in the
Eastern Himalayas, the North Bank Landscape and the Kaziranga Karbi-Anglong Landscape, and in the Nilgiris Eastern Ghats Landscape in South India. In
Cambodia, WWF trains, equips, and supports local staff to patrol protected areas and assess elephant distribution and numbers. Similar approaches are underway
in other landscapes.
In Vietnam, WWF supports an average of 20 forest guards that have been deployed by Vietnamese government authorities. WWF has been supporting these
teams with equipment and allowances so that they can better execute their duties and spend more time out on patrol.
In Sumatra, WWF coordinates Elephant Flying Squads. When wild elephants are seen close to villages or farms, local people can call an Elephant Flying Squad,
which is made up of trained elephants that scare off the wild elephants. The squads help bring short-term relief to the intense conflict between people and elephants
and create support for elephant conservation among struggling communities.
Protecting Elephant Habitat
In the Terai Arc Landscape, which encompasses parts of western Nepal and eastern India, WWF and its partners restore degraded biological corridors so that
elephants can access their migratory routes without disturbing human habitations. The long-term goal is to reconnect 12 protected areas and encourage
community-based action to mitigate human-elephant conflict. Such approaches are being facilitated by WWF across the range of the Indian elephant.
Securing Healthy Forests
A major breakthrough was achieved in Sumatra with the 2004 declaration of Tesso Nilo National Park, a protected area, which represents a significant step towards
the protection of the elephant's habitat. The Tesso Nilo forest is one of the last forest blocks large enough to support a viable population of critically endangered
Sumatran elephants and is also home to the critically endangered Sumatran tiger.
WWF calls on the government of Indonesia, palm oil companies, members of the pulp and paper industry and conservation organizations, to work together to
conserve Sumatran elephants, and their unique habitat. Because Sumatra’s trees are rooted in carbon-rich deep peat soil, the high rate of deforestation is also
causing high amounts of carbon to be released into the atmosphere, which contributes to climate change.
Projects
Asian Elephant
Adopt an Elephant

Thirty Hills
WWF and partners secure protection for critical rain forest in Sumatra. Thirty Hills is one of the last places on Earth where elephants, tigers and orangutans
coexist in the wild.
Publications
Ranger Perception: Asia
Asian Elephant: WWF Wildlife and Climate Change Series
Experts
Asian Elephant
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Related Species
Get the latest conservation news with WWF email.
Email: Email Address
Already have a WWF account?
World Wildlife Fund
1250 24th Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20037
Asian Elephant
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11/3/2017 Burma’s Last Timber Elephants | | Al Jazeera
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101east/2013/10/burmas-last-timber-elephants-20131022121426928192.html 1/29
Home Episodes 101 East Awards About Us
Burma’s Last Timber Elephants
Myanmar's timber elephants and their handlers have survived wars and dictatorships, but will they
survive democracy?
101 East 25 Oct 2013 06:41 GMT
News Middle East Documentaries Shows Investigations Opinion
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Each morning at the break of dawn, Zaw Win and his team herd their elephants
across the sweeping forest floor down to the river bank. They scrub and clean the
mighty mammals before harnessing them to begin their day's work. Zaw Win, a third-
generation oozie [Burmese for elephant handler] keeps a close eye on his animals
which are his livelihood.
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Decades of military dictatorship has meant many aspects of Myanmar are frozen in
time. One of those traditions dates back thousands of years - the timber elephant.
Myanmar has around 5,000 elephants living in captivity - more than any other Asian
country. More than half of them belong to a single government logging agency, the
Myanma Timber Enterprise (MTE). Elephants are chosen over machines because
they do the least damage to the forest.
These elephants have survived ancient wars, colonialism and World War II while hard
woods extracted by elephants in Myanmar once fed the British naval fleet. Yet today,
Myanmar's timber elephant is under threat.
Once the richest reservoir for biodiversity in Asia, Myanmar's forest cover is steadily
depleting and the government blames it on illegal loggers.
Now, the forest policy is being overhauled.
The Ministry for Environmental Conservation and Forestry has pledged to reduce its
logging by more than 80,000 tonnes this fiscal year. Myanmar will ban raw teak and
timber exports by April 1, 2014, allowing only export of high-end finished timber
products.
MTE says that the private elephant owners contracted by the government will be the
first on the chopping block. Saw Moo, a second generation private elephant owner,
sees a bleak future for his stable of 20 elephants. He fears the family business will
end in his hands and he may have to sell his elephants, leaving them vulnerable to
exploitation and abuse.
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Oozies
control the
three-ton
giants
using their
feet, vocal
commands
and
sometimes
101 East follows the oozies deep into Myanmar's forests, gaining unprecedented
access to remote elephant logging camps and witnessing the extraordinary
communication between elephants and men as they work.
But will the elephants and their handlers, who have survived kingdoms and military
dictatorships, survive democracy and the open market? Is there a place for them in a
changing modern world?
101 East asks if this could be the end of Burma's mighty timber elephants.
What are the solutions for out-of-work timber elephants? Share your thoughts
with us @AJ101East #TimberElephants
Myanmar's logging elephants
By Nirmal Ghosh
"Bring jungle boots, raincoat and drugs," the email said.
It was from a veterinarian in Yangon, Myanmar's capital, who was taking us for a
journey deep into the country's forests. But it could have been written a hundred
years ago, in a cable perhaps, to a young British colonial officer about to sail from
England to Burma to make a living in the timber business.
The trek into the Arakan Yoma to see the timber elephants working at the extraction
site took us almost two days. Mile upon mile of green rice fields and flooded plains,
and jungles of fern and giant bamboo under lowering monsoon skies, formed a
constant backdrop.
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a stick
[Tiffany
Ang]
Cameraman Mark Dobbin, producer Tiffany Ang, and I walked on high ridges in
baking sun, then got drenched to the bone in bucketing rain. We waded across rivers
and slept exhausted in damp clothes in bamboo huts to the sound of frogs and
cicadas. Mark had to wait a few minutes each morning for the humidity to clear from
his camera lenses.
Today, Myanmar is in a hurry to catch up with the rest of the world. It is reforming its
timber business, signing on to international sustainability agreements, and trying to
curb rampant deforestation. One key measure is to dramatically reduce timber
extraction, so export of logs will be banned from April 2014.
Neighbouring countries have already been down that road. It saves forests, but it also
has left thousands of elephants ''unemployed'' - and that is a problem.
Across South and Southeast Asia, elephant populations have been deeply damaged.
They have been used in wars, employed for begging and shipped to circuses.
Experience from Thailand and India shows that left in private hands, elephants are
often bought, sold or rented, and then exploited and abused. Meanwhile, the tradition
of the elephant handlers, and their compassionate, symbiotic relationship with
elephants, is fading.
The profession is normally handed down from father to son, but there are more
opportunities now in modern Myanmar. And with logging reduced, there may be less
livelihood options for the children of oozies like Zaw Win, who we follow in the film.
The oozies' way of life is simple and basic. But it is also very hard. Zaw Win, a father
of two, gets a salary of just $103 a month. He is among those who want a different
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future for their children and insists that his son stays in school so he is not limited to
being an elephant handler for the rest of his life.
Oozies live largely off the forest, and in the monsoon extraction season they are apart
from their families for up to six months. Health care is non-existent in the extraction
camps.
I came away from the film project with mixed feelings about logging by elephants. It is
tough and arduous work and the elephants are in chains and harnesses. Yet
Myanmar's timber elephants are acknowledged as among the best cared for
elephants in captivity. They work under strict guidelines for only a few hours a day
and browse natural fodder from the forest. They are monitored by vets who, with few
resources, spend days on the road and in camps in tough conditions.
We met some extraordinary characters, including the sure-footed, steady and tolerant
elephants and the private elephant owner Saw Moo in Pathein who fears the family
business will end in his lifetime.
As we trekked back down to the road after days in the jungle, with mist rising from the
folds of the Arakan mountains behind us, we were conscious that Myanmar's
elephants face an uncertain future. Under Myanmar's sustainable logging policies, the
extraction camp we visited will be abandoned after this season for 30 years before
the loggers and the elephants return.
But this time they may never come back. And as for the next generation of oozies, in
some cases there may not be one.
Back in the hotel in the city of Yangon it took a while to adjust to a comfortable bed
and clean white sheets. And I now understood what one of the vets, Dr Myo Nay Zar,
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meant when he told us that whenever he returns to Yangon from the field, he misses
the sounds of the jungle at night.
In Pictures:
101 East airs each week at the following times GMT: Thursday: 2230; Friday: 0930;
Saturday: 0330; Sunday: 1630.
Watch more 101 East
Source: Al Jazeera
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11/3/2017 Campaign Targets Myanmar Elephant Poaching
https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/campaign-targets-myanmar-elephant-poaching.html 1/7
Burma
Campaign Targets Myanmar Elephant
Poaching

By ZUE ZUE 2 November 2017
YANGON — A six-month campaign raising awareness of elephant poaching and wildlife
smuggling will launch on Nov. 4 in response to an alarming rate of elephant poaching in
Myanmar—one per week since January.
Myanmar’s elephants face extinction if poaching continues at such a rate, said Christy
Williams, country director of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), at a press conference on
the campaign on Wednesday.
 A wild elephant killed by elephant poachers in a village in Ngapudaw Township, Irrawaddy Region in August, 2017. / Salai Thant Zin / The Irrawaddy

The “Voice for MoMos” countrywide campaign will focus mostly in areas close to
elephant habitats, and along the routes used to smuggle elephant parts.
Six international wildlife conservation agencies will run the campaign—WWF; Wildlife
Conservation Society (WCS); Fauna and Floral International (FFI); Biodiversity and
Nature Conservation Association (BANCA); Friends of Wildlife (FoW); and Grow Back for
Posterity (GBP)— in cooperation with Myanmar Timber Enterprise and Forestry
Department under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation.
The number of elephants poached for their hide has increased over the past years,
according to the campaign, although the illegal trade for elephant hide has existed in
the country for a long time.
The natural resources and conservation ministry reported that 18 wild elephants were
poached in Myanmar in 2016 whereas about 30 elephants have been hunted as of
Aug. 31 this year—more than one elephant per week.
“The habitat of wild elephants has been increasingly narrowed. Previously, elephants
were hunted for their tusks only.
“But now, they are killed for their hide and meat as well. So, the situation is getting
worse,” said Dr. Zaw Min Oo, an elephant vet from the Forestry Department.
The elephant population of the country is now estimated to be between 1,400 and
2,000—a signiﬁcant decrease from about 10,000 in the 1940s, according to the
Forestry Department.
“In the past, elephants were only poached for their tusks. And not every male elephant
of Asian species has tusks. So the number of elephants poached was low. But now,

elephant hide is high in demand, and not just male elephants but also female elephants
and calves are targeted now. So, the population of Myanmar’s wild elephants has
declined rapidly,” said Christy Williams.
In Myanmar, elephants are hunted with poisoned arrows used along with bows or
hunting riﬂes or percussion ﬁrearms used along with poisoned metal balls, according to
the WWF. Elephant parts are smuggled into China, Thailand and the Golden Triangle
Region.
Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.
Topics: Conservation, Environment, Illegal Wildlife Trade
Zue Zue
The Irrawaddy
Zue Zue is Reporter at the Burmese edition of The Irrawaddy.
Burma
DASSK Visits Northern Rakhine in
Unprecedented Trip

11/3/2017 Demand for elephant skin, trunk and penis drives rapid rise in poaching in Myanmar | Environment | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/07/demand-elephant-products-drives-dramatic-rise-poaching-myanmar 1/9

Supported by
About this content
Axel Kronholm in Okekan
Demand for elephant skin, trunk and penis drives
rapid rise in poaching in Myanmar
A growth in demand for elephant parts to be used in traditional medicine in Asia means the number of elephants
being killed in Myanmar is rising
Wednesday 7 June 2017 07.21 BST
C
ase files and laminated photos of poachers spill out of captain Than Naing’s folder. As the chief of
police in Okekan township, one of Myanmar’s recent poaching hotspots, he is trying to track down
the men who have killed at least three elephants in the area over the past year. So far, he has
arrested 11 people suspected of having assisted the poachers. Meanwhile the poachers themselves
remain at large.
“These are the two men who we believe killed one of the elephants,” he says, pointing to two photos.
“They are still on the run.”
Reported cases of killed elephants in Myanmar have increased dramatically since 2010, with a total of
112 wild elephant deaths, most of them in the past few years. In 2015 alone, 36 wild elephants were
killed, according to official figures from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental
Conservation and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). The figures for 2016 are feared to be even
worse.

Neighbouring China is the main destination for elephant products. Despite the ivory ban imposed by
the Chinese government earlier this year, ivory is still the most valuable part of the elephant. But
worryingly conservationists are now seeing a growing demand for other parts of the animal; trunks,
feet, even the penis, to be used in traditional medicine. The hide or skin, which is believed to be a
remedy for eczema, is particularly in demand.
Most elephants are killed in Pathein and Ngapudaw townships in Irrawaddy division – which is a major
habitat for wild elephants – but recent killings have also been reported on both sides of the Bago
mountain range in central Myanmar, as well as in Mandalay division.
In November, villagers in Okekan township discovered an elephant that had been skinned and
mutilated, and alerted the authorities.
“It was found on the outskirts of Chaung Sauk village, drifting in a creek,” says Kyaw Hlaing Win, the
village tract administrator, who believes there are a lot more elephants killed than what is reported.
“We’ve had at least nine or 10 elephants killed in the past few years here.”
The hunters shoot elephants with arrows dipped in poison, and then follow the animal around as it
meets its slow and agonising death, before skinning it and hacking oﬀ the saleable parts.
The poachers operate in small gangs, often persuading local villagers to work as their guides or helpers.
“Many gangs are coming from central Myanmar. Some include people from the ethnic Chin minority;
they are good hunters,” says Saw Htoo Tha Po, senior technical coordinator at WCS . “They will make
contact with the local villagers who know where the elephants roam, and either hire or pressure the
villagers to work together with them.”
So far this year, at least 20 elephant corpses have been found stripped of their skin, the World Wildlife
Fund told AFP.

“Previously they would be hunted for their tusks, but as the male elephant population decreases the
poachers will now kill any elephant they can find and sell other parts: the skin, the trunk, the feet or the
penis, all of which is in demand in the Chinese market,” says Saw Htoo Tha Po. “The meat under the
foot is supposed to be especially tasty, and the other products are consumed for their perceived
medicinal qualities.”
There is little data on Myanmar’s wildlife trade, and no reliable figures on how much poachers are paid.
But a visit to the tourist-oriented Bogyoke Market in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, gives a hint of how
lucrative the trade can be. While many vendors display fake ivory bracelets, a couple of shops off the
main market lane offer real ivory trinkets and jewellery, as well as elephant teeth. One vendor sold
elephant teeth for between US$140 and $250 per tooth, depending on the size. No doubt an inflated
A traditional medicine shop selling elephant parts among the stalls
surrounding Myanmar’s Golden Rock pagoda. Slices of elephant skin are
sold for a few dollars per square inch. Photograph: Romeo
Gacad/AFP/Getty Images

figure pre-haggle given to a perusing tourist, but nevertheless an indicator of the potentially large
market value.
Research from the University of Yangon shows that even at wholesale prices, an ivory bangle can sell for
more than $100, while a necklace of beads can cost up to $150. In local markets for medicinal use,
elephant skin retails for 150,000 kyat (about $120) per kg, and teeth sell for about 200,000 kyat/kg.
The route to China
In an attempt to tackle the rise in poaching, the forestry department alongside the WCS has developed
the Myanmar Elephant Conservation Action Plan (Mecap), which outlines 10-year priorities to protect
elephants, including finding meaningful work for elephants that were previously employed in the
timber industry. Legal reforms are also intended to bring Myanmar’s laws in line with international
commitments like the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites).
However, the legislative process can be grindingly slow in Myanmar, and conservationists worry
poaching is spiralling out of control.
“The forestry department can only efficiently patrol the protected areas, but most of the poaching is
done outside of those areas,” says Saw Htoo Tha Po at WCS. “In these areas there is just not enough
resources. They have a forest ranger and some office staff, but they alone cannot face off the poachers.
They need more people and also reliable police to help them.”
Once an elephant is killed and has had its valuable parts cut off, the poachers will pass the products to
the first in a series of brokers, who will take one of several routes to cross Myanmar’s long border with
China and Thailand.
The main trafficking route for wildlife trade goes from Mandalay through Lashio and across into China
from Muse. Further south, there are at least four border crossings into Thailand used by wildlife
smugglers.

“There are many crossings with little enforcement,” says Dr Alex Diment, technical adviser to the
wildlife trafficking team at WCS. “Even the Yangon and Mandalay international airports are easy targets
for people taking small pieces of ivory to China.”
Wildlife products destined for the Chinese market are also smuggled to the border town of Mong La
where everything from elephant tusks to pangolin scales is for sale. Investigations by wildlife trade
monitoring network Traffic, the World Wildlife Fund and Oxford Brookes University have found
evidence that rhinoceros horns are being openly sold in Mong La.“There is a strong likelihood that rhino
horn and other wildlife products are coming across by land from India, through Myanmar, on their way
to China,” says Diment.
Recently, a Vietnamese national flying in from Yangon was arrested at Hanoi’s Noi Bai airport with 3kg
of rhino horn. The arrest is the first solid evidence of African wildlife trafficking through Myanmar.
Elephant skin, a tiger claw, ivory and porcupine quills displayed at a
small market stall in Mong La, Myanmar. Photograph: Taylor
Weidman/Getty Images

Since you’re here …
… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading the Guardian than ever but advertising
revenues across the media are falling fast. And unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a
paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can. So you can see why we need to ask for
your help. The Guardian’s independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard
work to produce. But we do it because we believe our perspective matters – because it might well be
your perspective, too.
Elephants are endangered across Asia, with about 40,000 to 50,000 remaining in 2003, down from
more than 100,000 at the start of the 20th century, according to the IUCN red list (which holds official
information on threatened species worldwide). After India, Myanmar has the largest population of the
Asian elephant, with as few as 1,400 wild elephants and 6,000 domesticated timber elephants.
Since the Myanmar government halted logging operations to stop deforestation in 2014, the timber
elephants have also become more vulnerable to poaching or trafficking.
As China moves to implement an ivory ban by the end of this year, conservationists worry how border
markets such as Mong La will be affected.
“We have already seen rapid growth of ivory available for sale in border markets, such as Mong La on
the Myanmar-China border,” says Chris R. Shepherd, Regional Director for TRAFFIC in Southeast Asia.
“It is likely that if enforcement on the Myanmar-China border at Mong La remains weak, this market
will continue to flourish.”
This piece is part of a year-long series on elephant conservation – email us at
elephant.conservation@theguardian.com

I appreciate there not being a paywall: it is more democratic for the media to be available for all and not
a commodity to be purchased by a few. I’m happy to make a contribution so others with less means still
have access to information. Thomasine F-R.
If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps fund it, our future would be much more secure.
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Topics
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Animals
Myanmar
South and Central Asia
features

11/3/2017 Elephant Conservation in Burma and Myanmar
http://www.eleaid.com/country-profiles/elephants-burma/ 1/7
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Home Elephant Conservation in Burma and Myanmar
Elephants in Myanmar / Burma
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The battle for the elephant’s survival in
Burma is vital for the future of the species.
The availability of the largest reserves of
elephant habitat in Asia married with the
greatest concentration of elephant experts
on the continent represent real hope that
elephants will continue to thrive here.
EleAid trustee Charles Begley produced A
Report on the Elephant Situation in Burma in
2006 which comprehensively summarises
the current status of Burma’s elephants.
Click here for the latest news about
elephants in Burma
Burma/Myanmar Elephant Population Figures
Elephant Range: 115,000 km²
Country Ranking: 1st of 13
Total Wild Elephants: 4,000 – 5,000
Country Ranking: 2nd of 13
Total Captive Population: >5,000
Country Ranking: 1st of 13
Source: R Sukumar – A Brief Review of the Status, Distribution and Biology of
Wild Asian Elephants Elephas maximus- International Zoo Yearbook 2006
EleAid shared a link.
Injured Baby Elephant Goes
Swimming
nytimes.com
A 5-month-old elephant is
receiving hydrotherapy
treatment in Thailand after
being rescued from an animal
snare.
2 days ago · View on Facebook
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Weaning Itself From
Elephant Ivory, China Turns
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While this information source is considered the very best available, accurate
data on wild elephant populations is di cult to obtain and scienti cally
verify.
Burma o ers the best hope for the survival of large herds of wild elephants
Wild Elephants in Burma/Myanmar
Despite being second in the population
rankings, Burma’s wild elephant
numbers have dropped dramatically
over the past 50 years and appear to still
be in decline.The major threats to the
wild population are:
Wild Elephant Capture
Burma still uses trained elephants in its large-scale logging industry.
Although the government o cially banned wild capture in 1994, it is known
to continue to ful l the needs of the timber industry.
Habitat Loss and Fragmentation
Despite having the largest forest tracts of all, deforestation is taking place at
an alarming rate. Although in theory Burma follows a policy of selective
logging, evidence suggests that large areas are being cleared, much of which
may be the result of illegal activity.
Promoters of ivory from the
extinct animals say it’s an
ethical alternative. Others fear
it may give cover to the black-
market elephant ivory trade.
When I'm 64... :)
Yangon’s oldest elephant
Mo Mo turns 64 | Coconuts
Yangon
coconuts.co
The Yangon Zoological Garden
held a celebration over the
weekend in honor of Mo Mo –
the city’s oldest elephant –
who just celebrated her 64th
birthday.
· Share
· Share

The shrinking and fragmentation of elephant habitat is placing increased
pressure on the remaining elephant population.
Poaching
Poaching for ivory, meat and other elephant products only takes place on a
very small scale in Burma, however poaching to capture elephant calves is
known to be common place. The mother and often other members of the
herd will ght to protect the calf and the hunters frequently resort to killing
them. The calves are then smuggled in to Thailand for work in the tourist
industry.
Domesticated Elephants in Burma/Myanmar
Logging Elephants
Over the past 200 years, Burma has used
elephants on a large scale in the timber
industry; an activity that is still a vital part of
the Burmese economy today.
Logging is carried out by the Myanmar Timber Enterprise (MTE) and they
employ or sub contract around 4,000 elephants. The use of elephants allows
a policy of selective logging which, in theory at least, allows the MTE to
extract valuable timber while leaving the forest otherwise in tact. This policy
can only be ful lled using elephant labour.

The main work of the elephants is to drag
felled timber from the cutting area to roads or
rivers from where it can be transported out of
the jungle.
Logging work is exceptionally hard, but strict
regulations are designed to maintain the
health of the animals. Burma has more
elephant experts than any other Asian country
and leads the world in elephant management,
veterinary care and mahout skills.
Other Work
Elephants are also used for the following work, although in much smaller
numbers
Village elephants – many villages, particularly those in more isolated
areas, will keep one or more elephants for a variety of jobs
Transportation and baggage elephants – particularly in mountainous
forest areas where the only alternative to using elephants is to travel by
foot. Not only do the MTE and villagers use elephants in this way, but it is
also reported that the guerrilla Shan State Army and the Karen National
Liberation Army use elephants to get around.
Ceremonial Use for religious and state functions
Tourism – both elephant shows and jungle trekking, although this industry
is far less developed and widespread as in neighbouring Thailand.
Agriculture, especially on di cult terrain

Other Problems
The government of Burma/Myanmar is an autocratic, military regime that
has earned pariah status in the world.
Sanctions from other countries and excessive government control and
ine cient policies have had a catastrophic e ect on the economy and
infrastructure of Burma.
Many governments and international NGO’s refuse to have anything to do
with the regime and those that do are hindered by the lack of economic
development.
Summary
The availability of large areas of elephant habitat, the presence of a large
number of local elephant experts and a culture that holds elephants in high
esteem creates great possibilities for comprehensive and integrated
elephant conservation policy. This is however unlikely to ever gain much
credibility or headway while the current regime remains in power.
Burma’s oozies are the best mahouts in the world

11/3/2017 Green Hill Valley – Elephant Camp with Re-Plantation
https://www.ghvelephant.com/ 1/15
G R E E N H I L L V A L L E Y
ELEPHANT CAMP WITH RE-PLANTATION
ABOUT OUR SERVICES GALLERY OUR TEAM ELEPHANT CARE CONTACT

Green Hill Valley was founded in 2011 by a family with a history of working with elephants in the Myanmar Timber Enterprise (MTE).
The focus is primarily on providing care for elephants that are no longer t to work. The family realized that Myanmar elephants
working in timber camps were in precarious situation as logging slows down due to a variety of factors. Another reason for starting
the GHV camp was the desire to educate and share information with both local residents and foreign visitors.
In 2012, the family managed to hire several disabled elephants from the MTE and a ve-year-old male was added in July 2012.
Thanks to the income provided by visitors, elephants at GHV can enjoy their full retirement and receive the veterinary care they
require.
VISION

MISSION

VALUES

Protecting our local environment, ensuring the well-being our elephants and educating local residents are all key components of
our project.
Visitors are of course welcome to join us in our daily care programs for elephants.
Reforestation is another one of our guiding principles. Our forest recovery program is built around visitor participation.
Each visitor is invited to plant one regional tree from our nursery. The idea is not only to encourage forest recovery, but also to
educate the local community about the importance of reforestation and risks posed by haphazard deforestation.

11/3/2017 In a disturbing new trend, poachers are killing Myanmar’s elephants for their skin, teeth, and tails | Stories | WWF
https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/in-a-disturbing-new-trend-poachers-are-killing-myanmar-s-elephants-for-their-skin-teeth-and-tails 1/6
World Wildlife Fund - WWF - Worldwildilife.org
Catalog is here! Find new ways to support WWF's global conservation efforts.
In a disturbing new trend, poachers are killing Myanmar’s
elephants for their skin, teeth, and tails
WWF aims to deploy an emergency anti-poaching plan

© Christy Williams / WWF
Date: June 06, 2017
In a disturbing and growing new trend, Asian elephants of all ages are being slaughtered in Myanmar for their skin and other body parts. Elephant poaching rates
since January have already surpassed the annual average for the country—in a country that has less than 2,000 wild Asian elephants, this is a frightening uptick
that requires immediate action to ensure their survival.
An astounding 110 elephants have been reported killed since 2013, primarily in the Bago Yoma and Ayeyarwady Delta where armed conflict and a lack of law
enforcement make the terrain more accessible to poachers. At this rate, wild elephants could vanish from these two key areas of Myanmar in only one or two years.
“Asian elephants are already facing tremendous challenges across their range," said WWF’s Nilanga Jayasinghe, senior program officer for Asian species. "Adding
to those is this new trend that we are seeing in Myanmar of herds being indiscriminately poached for their skin. It is extremely alarming. We must act now to protect
them!”

An emerging new threat
There are fewer than 50,000 Asian elephants left in the wild, and fewer than 2,000 in Myanmar. For decades, they’ve faced the threats of habitat loss, human-
elephant conflict, and, to a lesser extent, poaching. But poaching for body parts other than tusks (only male Asian elephants grow tusks, and only 1% of male
elephants in Myanmar have tusks) is on the rise.

Elephant skin is sold dried and is mixed with other ingredients to make topical creams for dry skin conditions, and consumed as medicine for stomach ailments. The
skin is also polished into beads and sold as lucky charm bracelets, while tail hairs are put into silver rings and worn for luck. Elephant teeth are ground down into a
powder which is used on the face to reduce spots and inflammation. Most markets selling elephant products sit along the border regions of China, Laos, and
Thailand, but there’s also a demand in Myanmar.
We can help protect Myanmar’s wild elephants
Right now, there are no anti-poaching patrols in the Bago Yoma and Ayeyarwady Delta regions. That’s why WWF is launching an emergency action plan to train,
equip, and deploy 10 anti-poaching teams to the most vulnerable areas, and implementing a thorough plan to stop the slaughter.

Learn more about WWF's action plan to stop Myanmar's elephant crisis
In This Story:
Illegal Wildlife Trade
Wildlife Conservation
Elephant
Asian Elephant
Stop Wildlife Crime
Get the latest conservation news with WWF email.
Email: Email Address
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World Wildlife Fund
1250 24th Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20037

11/3/2017 Myanmar Timber Elephant Project | Timber elephants
http://elephant-project.science/timber-elephants/ 1/7
Publications Timber elephants
Impact and outreach The Team
What we do Support us
Home » Timber elephants
Timber elephants
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  

Myanmar elephants
Myanmar (Burma) is home to the second largest total population of Asian elephants remaining worldwide (a er India), including a
captive population of approximately 5,000, the largest captive population in the world today. Most such captive elephants live in
government-owned timber camps where elephant draught power has been utilized extensively for more than a century.
Elephants in the timber industry
Myanmar exports 75% of the world’s teak, and the UN FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation) estimates that 50-60% of the country’s 60
million people depend on forestry for their basic needs. Despite increasing mechanisation, half of the Myanmar timber is extracted by
using trained elephants, particularly in the mountainous areas, because access by vehicles is di icult and such selective logging is more
sustainable. Unfortunately, although at least half of the timber elephants are captive-born, more elephants must be captured from the

wild to maintain the workforce. This could result in wild elephants in Myanmar becoming extinct by the end of this century. See the “what
we do-page” for information on how our research aims to provide new solutions to elephant management and healthcare in order to
optimise the balance between working ability, survival and fertility, and to minimise calf deaths.
The life of a timber elephant
All the elephants involved in our projects work in the timber industry and are owned by the Myanma Timber Enterprise . They are captive,
but live very di erent lives to captive elephants in zoos and their mortality rate is much lower than that of zoo elephants in western
countries, more closely matching survival rates documented for wild African elephants. The timber elephants live in forest camps, and
are engaged in dragging and pushing logs and extracting timber once trees have been felled, without the need to carve large roads
through the forest that jeopardise its integrity. In addition to their oozies (Burmese for ‘head rider’), the timber elephants are cared for by
a team of government veterinarians who carry out regular health checks, which are documented in every elephant’s personal logbook,
but they are not provisioned for or aided in mating or calving. Instead, at night the elephants forage in forests in their family groups
unsupervised and encounter tame and wild conspecifics leading to calves o en being sired by wild bulls. For this reason, the population
is characterised as semi-captive.
Gestation
Elephants have the longest gestation period of any mammal, typically around 22 months. The
timber elephants are not aided in mating or calving by their human caretakers, but instead
both events usually happen in the forest unsupervised. Many calves are thought to be sired
by wild bulls. Pregnant females are given a rest period from mid-pregnancy until 1 year post-
birth.
Birth
Although most calves are born in the forest unsupervised by humans, calves born in captivity are usually detected within a day, their birth
date is entered into their maternal logbook, and they are measured and given a health check by an MTE veterinarian soon a er birth.

Since birth, most calves are taken care of by one or more “aunties” (allomothers) in addition
to their mothers.
Calves at heel
Timber elephant calves up to 4 years of age are known as “calves at heel” and spend their
time in relative freedom with their mothers at all times. Mothers are given maternity leave for
their first year following birth, and although they are then used for light work, calves are still
cared for by their biological and allo-mothers and allowed to feed on demand.
Taming
Calves are separated from their maternal herd and tamed at around 4-5 years of age. The initial taming takes around 4 weeks, a er which
each calf is allocated an individual caretaker (‘oozie’) whose relationship with the elephant can last a lifetime. Calves are also individually
marked with a permanent ID-number and receive their own logbook detailing every subsequent health check and life event.

Trainee elephants
Calves between ages 5 and 17 are trained and used for light work duties.
Adult working elephant
At 18 years, the trainee elephants are put in the workforce as mature logging elephants. By this age most females are reproductively
mature (the average age at first reproduction is around 18). The working season is from June to February, covering the monsoon season
and cooler winter months. Working hours per day and year are stipulated by the Government, with usually up to 5 hours per day spent
dragging or pushing logs and the rest of the time spent foraging unsupervised in family groups.

View all news »
Retirement
All logging elephants that survive to the age of 55 are immediately retired and allowed to live
the rest of their lives (potentially into their late 70s) in relative freedom. However their oozie
continues to take care of them and their logbooks detailing health and life-events are
maintained until death. Some captive-born females continue bearing calves into their late
60s.
Latest news

11/3/2017 Myanmar Timber Elephant Project
http://elephant-project.science/ 1/3
Publications Timber elephants
Impact and outreach The Team
What we do Support us
We are a multi-disciplinary research group based at the
University of Turku, Finland and the University of Shef eld, UK,
studying a large and unique semi-captive population of timber
elephants in Myanmar.
Search
  

11/3/2017 Myanmar Timber Elephant Project
http://elephant-project.science/ 2/3
View all news »
Our individual-based study uses a detailed longitudinal data set, which combines several
decades of demographic data on the entire population with a more recent collection of
data on individual phenotypes in the field. Myanmar has the largest captive Asian
elephant population in the world but low rates of survival and reproduction necessitate
capture of wild elephants to maintain the working population. The health of the captive
population is therefore tightly linked to the endangered wild population. Our research
aims to determine factors a ecting health, fertility and mortality rates in the captive
population and devising strategies to improve them.
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11/3/2017 ◌ျမ ာ◌ျပ ေ◌တာဆငိ င္◌း မ် ိ ဳးတံးမယ္◌ ့အႏ◌ၱရာယ္
https://burmese.voanews.com/a/voices-for-momos-myanmar-elephant-/4095365.html 1/4
ျမန္မာ
ျမန္မာျပည္ က ေတာဆင္ရိုင္း မ်ိဳးတုံးမယ့္ အႏၱရာယ္
01 ႏိုဝင္ဘာ၊ 2017 ကိုစည္ သူ
ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံမွာ ေတာင္ဆင္ရိုင္းပစ္ခတ္ သတ္ ျဖတ္ တာေတြ တျဖည္ းျဖည္ း မ် ားျပားလာတာေၾကာင့္ လာမယ့္ ႏွစ္ေ
ပါင္းအနည္ းငယ္ အတြင္း မ် ိဳးသံုးေပ် ာက္ ကြယ္ သြားမယ့္ အႏၱရာယ္ နဲ႕ရင္ဆိုင္လာရႏိုင္တယ္ လို႕ သဘာ၀ပတ္ ၀န္း
က် င္ထိန္းသိမ္းေရးအဖြဲ႕ေတြက ေျပာပါတယ္ ။ ေတာဆင္ရိုင္း မ် ိဳးသံုးမွဳအႏၱရာယ္ နဲ႕ပတ္ သတ္ ၿပီး ျပည္ သူအၾကား
အသိပညာ အားနည္ းတာေၾကာင့္ အစိုးရနဲ႕ အစိုးရမဟုတ္ တဲ့ အဖြဲ႕အစည္ းေတြပူးေပါင္းၿပီး ပညာေပးအစီအစ
ဥ္ေတြကို က် ယ္ က် ယ္ ျပန္႕ျပန္႕ လုပ္ေဆာင္သြားမယ္ လို႕ သဘာ၀ပတ္ ၀န္းက် င္ထိန္းသိမ္းေရးအဖြဲ႕အစည္ းေတြ
က ေျပာပါတယ္ ။ ေတာဆင္ရိုင္းပညာေပးအစီအစဥ္အေၾကာင္း ရန္ကုန္ၿမိဳ႕ကေန ကိုစည္ သူသတင္းေပးပို႕ထား
ပါတယ္ ။
၂၀၁၇ ႏွစ္၀က္ အတြင္းမွာ သတင္းတစ္ပတ္ ကို ဆင္ရိုင္းတစ္ေကာင္ အသတ္ ခံေနရတာေၾကာင့္ လာမယ့္ ႏွစ္အ
နည္ းငယ္ အတြင္း မ် ိဳးသံုးမယ့္ အႏာၱရာယ္ နဲ႕ရင္ဆိုင္ေနရတယ္ လို႕ ေတာဆင္ရိုင္းထိန္းသိမ္းေရးေဆာင္ရြက္ ေန
တဲ့ အဖြဲ႕ေတြကေျပာလိုက္ တာပါ။ၿပီးခဲ့တဲ့ ႏွစ္ေတြအတြင္း ဆင္စြယ္ အတြက္ သာ ဆင္ရိုင္းေတြအသတ္ ခံရေပမ
ယ့္ ဒီႏွစ္ပိုင္းအတြင္း ဆင္သားေရအျပင္ အျခားခႏၶာကိုယ္ အစိတ္ အပိုင္းေတြေၾကာင့္ပါ ပစ္ခတ္ ဖမ္းဆီးတာေတြ
ရွိလာေနတယ္ လုိ႕ကမာၻလံုးဆိုင္ရာ သဘာ၀ပတ္ ၀န္းက် င္ရန္ပံုေငြအဖြဲ႕ WWF ရဲ႕ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံဆိုင္ရာ Country
Director ခရစ္စတီ၀ီလ် ံစ္ ကေျပာပါတယ္ ။
"အရင္ကေတာ့ ဆင္ေတြကုိသတ္ တယ္ ဆိုတာ ဆင္စြယ္ အတြက္ ပဲသတ္ ခဲ့တာျဖစ္တဲ့ အတြက္ ဆင္ထီးတိုင္းမွာေ
တာင္ ဆင္စြယ္ မရွိတဲ့ အာရွဆင္ေတြက အသတ္ ခံရတာအေရအတြက္ နည္ းပါတယ္ ။ အခုကေတာ့ ဆင္တစ္ေ
ကာင္ရဲ႕အရည္ ခြံကိုပါေရာင္း၀ယ္ လာၾကတာဆိုေတာ့ ဆင္အထီးအမေကာ ဆင္အေကာင္အငယ္ ေလးေတြကိုပါ

ပစ္ခတ္ သတ္ ျဖတ္ လာၾကာတာဆိုေတာ့ ဆင္ေကာင္ေရက အျမန္ဆံုးေလ် ာ့ က် လာတာပါ။ ဒါကတကယ့္ ကို စိုးရိ
မ္စရာပါ"
ျမန္မာ့ သစ္လုပ္ငန္းရဲ႕ခန္႕မွန္းစာရင္းေတြအရ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံမွာ ေတာဆင္ရိုင္းေကာင္ေရ ၁၄၀၀ ကေန ၂၀၀၀ ၾ
ကားရွိတယ္ လို႕ ခန္႕မွန္းထားၿပီးေတာ့ ရခိုင္၊ ပဲခူး၊ ဧရာ၀တီနဲ႕ မႏၱေလးတိုင္းေဒသေတြမွာ ေနထိုင္က် က္ စားၾက
ပါတယ္ ။ ေတာရုိင္းတိရစာၦန္ထိန္းသိမ္းေရးအဖြဲ႕ေတြရဲ႕ စာရင္းေတြအရ ၂၀၁၀ ခုႏွစ္ကေန ၂၀၁၆ ခုႏွစ္အထိ ေ
တာဆင္ရိုင္း ၆၃ ေကာင္သတ္ ျဖတ္ ခံခဲ့ရၿပီးေတာ့ ၂၀၁၇ ခုႏွစ္ဇန္န၀ါရီကေန ၾသဂုတ္ လအတြင္းမွာတင္ ေတာင္
ဆင္ရိုင္းေကာင္ေရ ၃၀ အထိသတ္ ျဖတ္ ခံခဲ့ရပါတယ္ ။
ေတာဆင္ရိုင္းအေရအတြက္ ထိန္းသိမ္းေရးနဲ႕ ဆင္ခႏၶာကိုယ္ အစိတ္ အပိုင္းေတြ ေရာင္း၀ယ္ ေဖာက္ ကားမွဳတား
ဆီးေရးအတြက္ ေတာဆင္ရိုင္းထိန္းသိမ္းေရး ေဆာင္ရြက္ ေနတဲ့ အဖြဲ႕အစည္ းေတြ ဦးေဆာင္ၿပီး Voices of
Momos(မိုမိုအတြက္ ရင္တြင္းစကားသံ) လို႕အမည္ ေပးထားတဲ့ ပညာေပးလွုံေဆာ္ မွု အစီအစဥ္တစ္ခုကိုစတင္ေ
ဆာင္ရြက္ ေနပါတယ္ ။ ဆင္ခႏၶာကိုယ္ အစိတ္ အပိုင္းက ထုတ္ လုပ္တဲ့ အသံုးအေဆာင္ပစၥည္ းေတြကို အသံုးမျ
ပဳေရးကတိျပဳတဲ့ လွုပ္ရွားမွႈကို လူမွုကြန္ရက္ စာမ် က္ ႏွာနဲ႕ အင္တာနက္ ၀က္ ဘ္ ဆိုက္ ေတြကေနတဆင့္ ပညာေ
ပးအစီအစဥ္ေတြကို လုပ္ေဆာင္သြားမယ္ လို႕ Voices of Momos လႈပ္ရွားမွုမွာပါ၀င္သူေတြကေျပာပါတယ္ ။
ေတာဆင္ရိုင္းေတြနဲ႕ပတ္ သတ္ တဲ့ အသိပညာေပးလုပ္ငန္းေတြအားနည္ းေနတာေၾကာင့္ အခုလိုလႈပ္ရွားမွုကို ျပဳ
လုပ္ရတာေၾကာင့္ အစိုးရနဲ႕အစိုးရမဟုတ္ တဲ့ အဖြဲ႕အစည္ းမည္ သူမဆို ပါ၀င္ႏိုင္တယ္ လို႕ ျမန္မာသစ္လုပ္ငန္း
ဆင္ဌာနစိတ္ က လက္ ေထာက္ ညႊန္ၾကားေရးမွဴးလည္ းျဖစ္ ဆင္ဆရာ၀န္လည္ းျဖစ္တဲ့ ေဒါက္ တာေဇာ္ မင္းဦးက
ေျပာပါတယ္ ။
“ဆင္ကလည္ း သူ႔ေတာထဲမွာroaming လုပ္ လွည့္ ပတ္ ေနတယ္ ။ အဲဒီေတာ့ ဘာပဲျဖစ္ျဖစ္ စားစရာရွိရင္ ၀င္
စားတဲ့ အတြက္ ေၾကာင့္ အဲဒီမွာ Conflict ျဖစ္တယ္ ။ Conflict ျဖစ္တဲ့ အတြက္ ေၾကာင့္မို႔လို႔ လူေတြဘက္ ကလည္ း
သူတို႔ရဲ႕ ပိုင္ဆိုင္မႈေတြ ပ် က္ စီးဆံုးရႈံးလာတယ္ ။ အဲဒီအတြက္ ေၾကာင့္ ဆင္ေတြအေပၚမွာ စိတ္ ေနစိတ္ ထားဘာျဖ
စ္လာသလဲဆိုေတာ့ ဒီေကာင္ေတြမရွိမွ ေအးမွာဆိုတဲ့ စိတ္ မ် ိဳးေျပာင္းသြားရင္ က် ေနာ္ တို႔ ဆင္ေတြအတြက္ ေ
တာ္ ေတာ္ အႏၱရာယ္ မ် ားပါတယ္ ။ အဲဒီေတာ့ ဒီလိုမ် ိဳးမျဖစ္ေအာင္ ဘယ္ လိုPlan ေတြခ်မယ္ ၊ ဘယ္ လိုဟာေတြလု
ပ္မယ္ ဆိုတာ က် ေနာ္ တို႔ Government ဘက္ ကလည္ း စဥ္းစားရမွာပါ။ ဒီဆင္ေတြကို ဘယ္ လိုထိိန္းသိမ္းသင့္
တယ္ ဆိုတဲ့ Education Awareness Program မ် ိဳးေတြကေန က် ေနာ္ တို႔ ဒီလိုပံုစံေလးလုပ္ျခင္းအားျဖင့္ အ
ထူးေမတၱာရပ္ခံပါတယ္ ေက် းဇူးတင္ပါတယ္ ။”
Voices of Momos လွုပ္ရွားမွုကို ၂၀၁၇ ႏို၀င္ဘာကေန ေျခာက္ လအခ်ိန္သတ္ မွတ္ ထားၿပီး ကနဦးပညာေပးအ

စီအစဥ္ေတြကို ျပည္ သူေတြၾကားက် ယ္ က် ယ္ ျပန္႕ျပန္႕လုပ္ေဆာင္သြားဖို႕ စီစဥ္ထားတယ္ လို႕ ကမာၻလံုးဆိုင္ရာ
သဘာ၀ပတ္ ၀န္းက် င္ရန္ပံုေငြအဖြဲ႕ WWF ကေျပာပါတယ္ ။
ေတာဆင္ရိုင္းထိန္းသိမ္းေရးအဓိကရည္ ရြယ္ တဲ့ ဒီလွုပ္ရွားမွဳကိုျမန္မာ့ သစ္လုပ္ငန္း၊ သစ္ေတာဦးစီးဌာန အပါ
အ၀င္ ႏိုင္ငံတကာ ေတာ႐ုိင္းတိရစာၦန္ႏွင့္အပင္ထိန္းသိမ္းေရးအဖြဲ႕ (FFI) ၊ ဇီ၀မ် ိဳးစံုမ် ိဳးကြဲႏွင့္ သဘာ၀ပတ္ ၀န္း
က် င္ထိန္းသိမ္းေရးအသင္း (BANCA)၊ သားဌက္ ထိန္းသိမ္းေရးအဖြဲ႕ (WCS) ၊ Friends of Wildlife ၊ ကမာၻလံုး
ဆိုင္ရာ သဘာ၀ပတ္ ၀န္းက် င္ရန္ပံုေငြအဖြဲ႕ WWF နဲ႕ အေမရိကန္အေျခစိုက္ Smithsonian Conservation
Biology Institute (SCBI) တို႕ပါ၀င္ပါတယ္ ။
ျမန္မာျပည္ က ေတာဆင္ရိင္း မ် ိဳးတံးမယ္ အႏရာယ္

11/3/2017 Myanmar to launch elephant conservation project | The Myanmar Times
https://www.mmtimes.com/national-news/nay-pyi-taw/24609-myanmar-to-launch-elephant-conservation-project.html 3/9
Myanmar to launch elephant conservation project
Pyae Thet Phyo 19 Jan 2017
Amid a dramatic rise in elephant poaching, the government is stepping up efforts to protect the tusked mammals with a new
conservation project expected to be unveiled later this week.
Minister of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation U Ohn Win said the Myanmar Elephant Conservation Project will legislate
against killing elephants, and will also include establishing a registry of both wild and domesticated elephants.
He added that the project has been drafted with urgency in order to crack down on the increase in elephant killing, and the trade in elephant
parts.
U Ohn Win said the project plans should contain the relevant laws which can be used against those involved in the illegal killing of elephants.
In order to undertake long-term conservation, the project will make a list enumerating both wild and domesticated elephants. All elephant
owners will be informed and require to register the animals with the ministry, according to U Ohn Win.
The Ministry of Forestry estimates there are about 2000-3000 wild elephants in the country, including in sanctuaries and natural habitats.
The elephant conservation project will also seek to advance research on elephant, human-wildlife conflict caused by territory encroachment
and how citizens can contribute to habitat preservation efforts.
At a world wildlife conference in Johannesburg, South Africa last year, countries party to the Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora – including Myanmar – agreed to combat elephant poaching and the selling of ivory and
elephant organs.
Elephant poachers in Myanmar mostly sell ivory to China and Thailand through illegal channels, with a single tusk bringing in thousands of US
dollars. But China, one of the largest markets for elephant ivory, announced a 2017 ban on all ivory trade and processing. The move was
welcomed by environmental activists as a key step in curtailing the region’s ivory trade.

11/3/2017 Myanmar to launch elephant conservation project | The Myanmar Times
https://www.mmtimes.com/national-news/nay-pyi-taw/24609-myanmar-to-launch-elephant-conservation-project.html 4/9
According to government records from 2010 to 2016, Myanmar lost a total of 133 elephants – 72 to natural causes and 61 to poachers.
Translation by San Layy and Kyaw Soe Htet
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11/3/2017 Unemployed, Myanmar’s Elephants Grow Antsy, and Heavier - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/world/asia/myanmar-logging-elephants-unemployment.html 1/5
https://nyti.ms/1KhQfHC
ASIA PACIFIC
Unemployed, Myanmar’s Elephants Grow Antsy, and
Heavier
点击查看本文中文版 Read in Chinese
By THOMAS FULLER JAN. 30, 2016
WA KALU PU, Myanmar — Dragging giant tree trunks up and down the steep hillsides of sweltering jungles is a
tough job. But there is something worse, say owners of Myanmar’s logging elephants: having no job at all.
Shrinking forests and a law enacted three years ago that prohibits the export of raw timber have saddled
Myanmar with an elephant unemployment crisis. Hundreds of elephants have been thrown out of work, and many
are not handling it well.
“They become angry a lot more easily,” U Chit Sein, 64, whose eight logging elephants now work only a few days
a month. “There is no work, so they are getting fat. And all the males want to do is have sex all the time.”
Elephants hold an almost mystical place in Myanmar, home to the world’s largest captive elephant population.
For hundreds of years, they helped extract precious teak and hardwoods from jungles that even modern machinery

still cannot penetrate.
Now the future of the 5,500 or so wrinkled pachyderms in captivity is a major preoccupation for the government
officials who oversee them.
“Unemployment is really hard to handle,” said U Saw Tha Pyae, whose six elephants have been jobless for the
past two years. “There is no logging because there are no more trees.”
Myanmar’s leading elephant expert, Daw Khyne U Mar, estimates that there are now 2,500 jobless elephants, many
of them here in the jungles of eastern Myanmar, about two and a half hours from the Thai border. That number
would put the elephant unemployment rate at around 40 percent, compared with about 4 percent for Myanmar’s
people.
“Most of these elephants don’t know what to do,” Ms. Khyne U Mar said. “The owners have a great burden. It’s
expensive to keep them.”
Adult elephants, which each weigh about 10,000 pounds, eat 400 pounds of food a day and, other than circuses
and logging, have limited job opportunities.
Logging is arduous. But elephant experts say hard work is one reason Myanmar’s elephants have remained
relatively healthy. A 2008 study calculated that Myanmar’s logging elephants, which have a strict regimen of work
and play, live twice as long as elephants kept in European zoos, a median age of 42 years compared with 19 for zoo
animals.
Some logging elephants live much longer. “You see working elephants living into their 50s and 60s quite
regularly,” said Joshua Plotnik, an elephant behavior specialist based in Thailand. “It all comes down to nutrition and
proper care.”
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Elephants have been known to display a sense of purpose in their work, experts say, and the loss of a job can be
demoralizing.
“I don’t want to anthropomorphize,” said John Edward Roberts, the director of elephants and conservation
activities at an elephant rescue center, the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation in Thailand. “But if you take
away that part of their life that has entertained them or stretched them mentally and physically — it’s difficult.”
For most people in Myanmar, things are looking up. The economy is growing rapidly and citizens are enjoying
newfound freedoms after years of brutal dictatorship. But the dawn of democracy here has meant a reversal of
fortune for elephants. In decades past, when Myanmar’s population suffered under dictatorship, life was arguably
much less harsh for elephants.
The military governments adhered to a strict labor code for elephants drawn up in British colonial times: eight-
hour work days and five-day weeks, retirement at 55, mandatory maternity leave, summer vacations and good
medical care. There are still elephant maternity camps and retirement communities run by the government. In a
country where the most basic social protections were absent during the years of dictatorship, elephant labor laws
were largely respected, partly because an overworked elephant is a very dangerous animal, say those who handle
them.
Each logging elephant has its own record book, with medical and work history managed by Myanma Timber
Enterprise, a government company often referred to by its initials.
“The M.T.E. elephants that I’ve seen are really healthy compared with elephants I’ve seen in other countries,”
said Dr. Susan Mikota, the director of veterinary programs and research at Elephant Care International, a charity
based in the United States and devoted to elephant welfare. “They are on a natural diet, they are allowed to forage.
They have good muscular skeletal body condition. They get good exercise.”
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Georgia Mason, a co-author of the 2008 study, said that obesity seemed to be a major factor in the lower life
expectancy of zoo elephants. A subsequent study showed that elephant babies born in zoos were 15 percent heavier
than those born in logging camps, she said.
With the number of jobless elephants likely to increase as forests shrink and the logging industry wanes, the
government is exploring the possibility of releasing some of the elephants into the wild.
Simon Hedges, the elephant coordinator at the Wildlife Conservation Society, an animal protection organization
based in the United States, said this was an “exciting opportunity.” But he and others cautioned that concerns needed
to be addressed about captive elephants spreading diseases to wild populations and raiding villages for food.
“Some of the more radical organizations believe that you can let all of the captive elephants go in the wild —
that’s easier said than done,” said Mr. Hedges, who last year in Myanmar took part in a meeting, hosted by the
Burmese government, on the future of elephants. “Elephants are big, dangerous, scary animals. It’s hard to keep them
away from crops.”
Elephant owners regularly release their animals into the jungles to forage and are often forced to indemnify
villagers when crops are devoured.
“There is not much space left in the jungles for them,” said Mr. Chit Sein, the elephant owner.
Forest cover in Myanmar has decreased by 42 percent since 1990, according to the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations.
As they await a solution, elephant owners are coping with joblessness in various ways.
Some have sold their charges to businessmen in Thailand, where they will be deployed in the Thai tourism
industry, including in elephant shows and jungle treks. Exporting elephants to Thailand is technically illegal without

official permission but elephant owners say it appears to be happening with greater frequency.
But other owners say they cannot bear the thought of selling their elephants.
“I don’t know what I will do with my elephants,” said Mr. Saw Tha Pyae, who like many elephant owners
inherited the beasts from his parents. “But I will never sell them, never! I love them so much!”
Follow Thomas Fuller on Twitter @thomasfullerNYT.
Saw Nang contributed reporting from Taungoo and Myawaddy, Myanmar.
Get news and analysis from Asia and around the world delivered to your inbox every day with
the Today’s Headlines: Asian Morning newsletter. Sign up here.
A version of this article appears in print on January 31, 2016, on Page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: Myanmar’s Unemployed Grow
Antsy, and Heavier.
© 2017 The New York Times Company

11/3/2017 Wild elephants poaching rises in southern Rakhine, Ayeyawady Region | Eleven Myanmar
http://www.elevenmyanmar.com/opinion/11137 1/2
(/)
Writer: Hsan Htoo Aung
Wild elephants poaching rises in southern Rakhine, Ayeyawady Region
Submitted by Eleven on Thu, 08/17/2017 - 23:17
The body of a wild elephant being killed in Ayeyawady Region
The rate of wild elephant poaching has been increasing in Ayeyawady Region and southern parts of Rakhine State, although conservation activities are being carried out at Rakhine
Yoma Wildlife Sanctuary, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).
In Myanmar, the number of wild elephants is declining due to elephant poachers who want elephant skins and other parts. Although the Ministry of Forestry estimates there are about
1,400 to 2,000 wild elephants in the country, the actual amount is likely less.
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11/3/2017 Wild elephants poaching rises in southern Rakhine, Ayeyawady Region | Eleven Myanmar
http://www.elevenmyanmar.com/opinion/11137 2/2
That’s why elephant conservation tasks are being carried out in Alaungdaw Kathapa National Park and Rakhine Yoma Wildlife Sanctuary under the sponsorship of Environment and
Birds Conservation Team of the Forest Department.
“It is very important to conserve wild elephants. If the departmental heads and civic organizations carry out the conservation tasks of the wild elephants, they might succeed. Locals
must participate in elephant conservation tasks. We would like to urge the locals to inform us if they see elephant poachers,” Dr. Saw Htoo Tha, Technical Senior Coordinator of the
Birds Conservation Team (Myanmar).
With the aim to conserve endangered animals including elephants, the WCS is now carrying out research works with locals at the watershed areas in Banchaung region of Dawei
District, Taninthari Region.
The Myanmar Elephant Conservation Action Plan was drawn by the experts from home and abroad. International organisations are drawing up the Myanmar Elephant Conservation
Action Plan.
Translated by KSM
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11/3/2017 Will Myanmar’s elephants die out because their skin is being made into jewellery? | World news | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2017/oct/09/elephant-skin-trade-the-animals-latest-existential-threat 1/5

11/3/2017 Will Myanmar’s elephants die out because their skin is being made into jewellery? | World news | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2017/oct/09/elephant-skin-trade-the-animals-latest-existential-threat 2/5
Emine Saner
Will Myanmar’s elephants die out because their skin
is being made into jewellery?
With the ivory trade virtually dead, poachers are coming up with new markets for elephant products – much to the
horror of campaigners
Monday 9 October 2017 17.05 BST
T
he extent to which humans can ﬁnd a use for every part of an elephant seems inﬁnite. Once, it was
a desire for ivory that was to blame for the destruction of populations, but now that countries have
cracked down on that – including a ban in the UK on the sale of antique ivory – markets for other
products are being found. The latest fad is for elephant skin, which is being sold as jewellery and a cure
for eczema.
In Myanmar there are thought to be only 1,000-2,000 elephants left, down from 10,000 two decades
ago. Female Asian elephants, which were always protected to a degree because they don’t have tusks,
are now being targeted.

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