ELEPHANT PHILANTHROPY

As we began developing our concept of utilizing the amazing power of NFTs and crypto to do some substantial good in the world, we studied the elephant situation in SE Asia, wrote to a number of the elephant sanctuaries listed and described online as “highly ethical,” and had the extreme good fortune to develop a relationship with Sarah of the family-run Mahouts Elephant Foundation in Thailand (mahouts.org).

Mahouts Elephant Foundation, through their partnerships, is situated in thousands of acres of lush native forest where elephants roam freely. The elephants, while living semi-wild and free, are cared for by mahouts (keepers) from the local Karen indigenous people’s village. This unique and beautiful habitat is also home to wild elephants migrating from adjoining national parks, meaning wild and captive elephants can thrive together in this remarkable forest. The foundation, through community-based tourism, offers the local people a good living wage, enabling them to continue their lifestyle and culture.

Karen people have been taking care of elephants for millennia. While the elephants roam freely, they love their keepers and happily come to be with them when they are in the forest. Visitors to the foundation, who come to observe the elephants in their natural habitat, live with the local villagers during their stay, eating their food, sleeping in their guest houses, and even learning crafts from their local culture.

All in all, it is a wonderful symbiotic relationship between the local Karen villagers, the tourists, the elephants, and Mahouts Elephant Foundation. A stay with them provides a way for those interested to observe the elephants being elephants, while immersing oneself in the local culture.

The project where Mahouts Elephant Foundation elephants roam free also serves as a giant forest laboratory wherein a number of university researchers study a wide range of the natural factors of the elephants’ lives, from the microsystems that grow in the elephants’ footprints after a rain to the food they forage in the forests.

Mahouts Elephant Foundation is developing the ethical model for creating a habitat wherein the many captive elephants of SE Asia can retire and live out their lives in their natural home. They have similar projects that are in line with their goals of providing elephants with the freedom to live their lives in their natural habitat planned in other locations across Thailand, and more widely in Asia.

Please note that there is no official connection between EHEW and Mahouts Elephant Foundation. EHEW was formed to rescue and help elephants all over the world. On studying the different rescue projects around the world, EHEW decided that the model presented by Mahouts Elephant Foundation was excellent and very worthy of funding. Funds raised from the EHEW NFTs will be used to accomplish many projects in Africa as well elsewhere in Asia.

EHEW’s VISION FOR THE FUTURE

Recent changes in SE Asia and Thailand - political, social, climate, “development,” etc. - have created an urgent need for different types of help for Thailand’s large population of elephants in captivity.

Different situations in different parts of the world require different solutions. There are problems in Africa with wild elephants destroying the crops of villagers with whom they share the wilderness. When people work so hard to grow food for a subsistence diet, and it is trampled and ruined by hungry elephants, they soon see the elephants as “predators” out to destroy their already scarce food. Many villagers come to hate the elephants and the obscene profits made by killing elephants for their ivory can actually seem justified, and some of the locals become poachers.

There are several possible solutions to this problem that might be considered. Solar powered electric fencing can divert elephants. It has been suggested that elephants fear bees because the bees naturally follow the co2 exhaled by the elephants and sting them up their trunk. Perhaps small solar-powered devices emitting the sounds of an active hive could be placed around the crops, deterring the elephants at the cost of a few dollars each. Conversely, villagers could be taught beekeeping to enhance their lives.

Elephants have super hearing (check out those ears!) and perhaps even just a few devices could protect a relatively large field, solving a major problem through creative technology. A project exploring these, and other possibilities, as a safe and humane deterrent to keep elephants out of farms is definitely in our plans. Do any of you tech-savvy inventors/ innovators have any ideas?

There are many elephants in India, especially along the western coast. Elephants there have many of the same problems as elephants further east in SE Asia, but there are also differences in how the elephants and humans interact. Elephants in Southeast Asia are primarily used in the tourist/entertainment industry while there is a focus on temple elephants and ceremonial parades in India.

Training a young elephant is complex and frequently requires a level of dominance leading to terrible abuse. If an elephant is to be prepared for tourist activities, temple duties or circus-style shows, the training can be brutal and sadly this requires the elephant to be taken away from its mother at a very young age. This causes immense pain and suffering to a young developing complex brain and affects individual elephants both psychologically and physically. Elephants naturally live in multi-generational family groups and suffer greatly when ripped away from family members to live a life in isolation.

Traditionally a young mahout will grow and bond with a young elephant and this is still seen in elephant keeping communities across Asia but, with the advent of mass tourism, elephants need to be trained to meet the demands of an ever-growing tourism industry.

Elephants and humans have similar lifespans and traditionally an elephant and mahout will be together for many decades, developing a deep, loving and trusting relationship.  There are stories of the elephant withering away and dying if the mahout dies, and vice versa.

Many elephants are kept by religious temples for use in parades. These elephants are often kept in chains and small enclosures when not performing and live a life that is far from their ideal lives in the wild.

COMBATTING AFRICAN POACHING

Every 15 minutes a wild African elephant is murdered for their ivory.  100 per day. Over 30,000 every year.  Earth’s wild elephant populations have decreased by 95% in the last 100 years.  19 of 20 wild African elephants are now dead, thanks to humans killing them for their ivory. They’re almost gone … and going fast.  We must act now!

Many factors contribute to the poaching problem.  The tusks from a large male elephant can bring upwards of $100,000 on the black market.  Also, crops are often trampled by wild elephants, causing farmers to see the hungry giants as predatory pests trying to take their food and destroy their fields.

The countries where the wild elephants roam make a significant income from tourism, and the governments generally do all they can to fight the poachers.  But many of the governments in elephant country are very poor.  They do what they can to fight poaching, but their resources are very limited.

EHEW’s plans for fighting poaching should be quite effective.  If the elephant’s NFTs can prosper like their jungle neighbors - the famous Bored Apes - they will have substantial resources to effectively fight poaching on all levels.

A squad of 14 anti-poaching rangers costs $25,000 to $30,000 to outfit and maintain for a year.  Every cent from 12,000 of the elephant’s NFTs goes towards helping elephants. This will hopefully produce enough resources for the elephants to create and maintain anti-poaching ranger squads wherever they are needed as well as working effectively with the local communities in elephant country.   

Entire communities can be incentivized by rewarding them with funds for their choice of needed civic improvements when there are no or substantially fewer elephants killed in their territory.  Community pressure against the poachers would be intense if a new school or water well or solar electric system was the reward for protecting elephants in their territory. In some cases, these projects can be funded initially by EHEW then sustained through increased well-managed tourism to the area. Tourism would then become an integral part of sustainability. The role of the elephant would change from pest to provider of good things for the community.

Combining substantial incentives for every community if reduced elephant kills are registered, along with the hiring of many able-bodied local men and women as anti-poaching rangers wherever feasible, is the backbone of EHEW’s plans to fight the poaching problem in Africa.  Providing improvements to the farmers, such as solar-electric fencing to deter elephants, is also important, as well as introducing farmers to crops that don’t attract elephants to their fields.

The elephants are hopeful that their NFTs will generate enough resources to save their species from extinction in the wilds of Africa.